Revell AG 1/200 B.737-200, previewed by Richard F

Revell AG 1/200 B.737-200

KIT #:	04232
PRICE:	35 yuan RMB
DECALS:	One option
REVIEWER:	Richard F
NOTES:	Reboxed Matchbox kit

Boeing's awesome little 737 is one of the most successful airliners of all time. If you've flown an airliner in the last 50 years, chances are you've flown on a 737.

The -200 model - aka the "Original" - is perhaps seen as the definitive 737 for those of us old enough to have flown on it. In reality, the much more modern -800 model is by far the most-produced. It is also eminently more capable than its ancestor, being able to carry twice the passengers twice as far for a lot less fuel cost.

But the -200 will always have a place in my heart, at least, as one of the first airliners I ever flew in.

THE KIT

It's NOT the Hasegawa kit. Definitely not. The parts layout is different, the fuselage length and wingspan are slightly different, and the biggest giveaway is that it has Matchbox kit numbers engraved on the inside of the fuselage.

This must be an old kit, perhaps a contemporary of the classic Hasegawa offering. In this Revell edition, there's a bit of flash but basically it holds up well. The main difference, apart from the dimensions, is that this one comes with recessed windows as opposed to Hasegawa's completely open windows. That makes it a bit easier to fill them up because you already have the rear end of the windows blanked off.

The decals are nice if you like British Airways. There's only one option, which is for the aircraft on the box top. They're copyrighted 1998 so they should be of reasonable quality.

I have sourced some aftermarket decals for my build so I won't get to test these ones out, but I built my Revell Concorde with decals of a similar era and I mist say they were excellent.

CONCLUSIONS

Well, I leave it to the nerds to decide if this is better than the Hasegawa kit. It's certainly more readily available than that one, these days, and I'd say the kit decals are better than the ones that come in those older Hasegawa boxings. That said, lots of people prefer to source their own decals. I'd say that unless you have a real focus on accuracy, you could probably be as happy with this as with the Hasegawa kit. When I build it, I will pose it in a photo next the Hasegawa one, and see what I feel about it then.