Hasegawa 1/200 Boeing 777-200 By Brad Shinn

Introduction

I recently had a commission to build a Boeing 777-200 in Continental’s current livery in 1/200 scale. The customer's requirements were to have this B777 built with a “short final” approach profile. This meant that this Hasegawa kit would have to be modified dramatically to fit this request.

Construction

My first step was to collect as much reference photography of a Continental B777 on a short final approach as I could. Airliners.net is and was always the best resource for this step.

This build needed to have a 30% flap/slat deployment with the wings being flexed while landing. Also landing gear had to be modified to represent the extra extension of not being compressed while on the ground. The fuselage, engines and stabilizers would not have to be modified for this build at all.

The two fuselage halves of passenger windows were filled with putty and reinforced from the inside with thin strips of styrene. No weight was needed for the nose to sit level. After gluing these halves together and filling seams I attached the windscreen and filled where needed. I primed the fuselage and fixed any left-over gaps with putty and some “Gap Filler” glue. Assembly of the two halves was a great fit. Hasegawa does a very accurate casting of a Boeing 777 fuselage!

The assembly of the wings was next to build. First I removed the kits main flaps from the top and bottom halves of the wings. I sanded and with the help of my Dremel thinned the insides of the trailing edges of the upper wing halves very thin. The kits leading edge slats were scraped with my Xacto blade to represent the look of what the leading edge looks like during slat deployment. From some styrene I traced the outline of the bottom main flap that were removed and made new ones that I could properly shape into the new flaps. After looking at many photographs of slat deployment on the B777 I shaped my slats from some styrene stock. Before gluing of any wing parts I had to flex the wings up from the middle and tips….carefully! With the use of hot water and holding my breath I re-shaped the wings profile. Making sure both wings were flexed at the same angles. I then was able to glue the wing halves together. Using the kit’s six main flap guide parts I cut them all at a 45 degree angle just at the pivot point and attached only the front half flap guides to the wings. The larger six cut flap guides were then glued to their mates on the wings.

Attaching the newly shaped flaps to their flap guides on the wings takes lots of patience. I had to first flex the outer main flaps to match the trailing edge profile of the new flexed wings. Then I could glue them to their flap guides. The inner main flap did not need to be flexed. However, the inner main flap does have an additional smaller second extension flap attached to it. This extension flap is shaped from styrene and glued to the trailing edge of the inner main flap. With the help of some styrene round strip attached to the wings for reinforcement I could then attach the new inner main flaps.

The slats had to be flexed as well to match the newly flexed wings. A small leading edge lip was needed for the slats. This was made from quarter round styrene strips then attached to the new slats. Placement of the slats to the leading edge of the wings was helped by looking at many, many photographs of slat deployment on the B777. Only after all my new wing components are glued to the wings could I prime the new wings.

All my landing gear had to be cut and extended from below the struts shock absorbers The nose gear was cut first then extended with the help of the same gauge styrene round strip as the strut. I also added a push back attachment to the new strut for the ground crew tug!

The two main landing gear trucks were cut below the shock absorbers at a 45 degree angle to represent the look of that unmistakable famous Boeing landing gear. The same gauge pipe styrene that the main struts have were used for extensions. A larger V shaped styrene pivot brackets were made to replace the kits compressed styled ones.

The painting of the wings, horizontal stabs, engines and bottom portion of the fuselage was painted with Tamiya AS-16 spray. I used some Tamiya polishing compound to bring out a sweet shine for the matte gray. For the top half of the fuselage I used “Mr. White” surfacer 1000. The two GE engines have some matte aluminum foil on their hot sections.only. The very bottom of the fuselage belly and leading edge vertical stab has the same matte aluminum foil. Photo etched and scrap styrene was used for all VHF antennas.

Flying Colors decal sheet FC20-008 was used for this Continental livery along with some detail bits found from my decal collection. For more shine for the fuselage top and to seal the decals I brushed on some Future floor acrylic. To weather the wings and underside I used some Tamiya Weatherine Master “B” paste. I used a mechanical pencil to help with some panel lines.

All of my photography was taken with a Nikon CoolPix 4800 camera.

Conclusion

I always enjoy working with Hasegawa kits in 1/200 scale. Hasegawa has always been very accurate in design and builder friendly. Not to mention to modify, too.

Happy modeling!