Ansett 727 VH-ANE

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This is a model of an Ansett Airlines Boeing 727 in their 1980s ‘Southern Cross’ livery. VH-ANE was the third of four new Boeing 727-277LR aircraft ordered by Ansett in the early 1980s. It was later repainted in the Australian ‘Flag livery’ which was used from Setpember 1990, and later the ‘Starmark livery’, which covered the fleet from late 1994 to Ansett’s demise in 2002.

Ansett ‘Flag’ and ‘Starmark’ liveries

The 277 LR (Long Range) was a variant of the 727 model 200, featuring larger capacity belly fuel tanks, at the expense of payload and baggage space, but could fly direct from Sydney to Perth.

Named ‘Gold Coast’, Ansett  received this 727 from a delivery flight to Tullamarine, Melbourne on 30th June 1981, and it commenced revenue service from Tullamarine to Perth on 11th July, 1981. In 1995, VH-ANE became the first 727 in the world to have an in-flight video entertainment system installed. Ansett sold this aircraft in December 1996, and operated its final revenue service from Hobart to Tullamarine, on 5th January 1997.

 

3D printing files

The 3D model came from ‘lurydc’ on cults3D.com as a Zipped archive of .stl files. It didn’t include a decal sheet, so I created my own.

The .stl files were supplied as 1:100 scale, but I wanted a larger model of 1:72 scale (almost 600mm long). To do this, I loaded the supplied files into Lightwave 3D, enalrged everything, and made some alterations, particularly to the wings, to suit how I wanted to print the parts.  I added internal joiner tabs and slots to make joining the fuselage sections easier. Although the model was to be glued, the tight fit of the tabs and slots were such that the model basically snapped together.

Lightwave 3D: The supplied .stl files included landing gear, but I elected not to use it, and instead present the printed model on a stand as ‘in-flight’.

 

Printing

Printing on Snapmaker A350 in PLA+. Since the model was going to be painted with many coats of primer and finally white, it didn’t matter printing it in black filament, of wich I had an ample supply.
This 727 was model was designed by ‘lurydc’ to be printed in a number of sections. Sometimes designers will create their models for one-piece prints, which is usually not the best way to print aircraft models, except for very small sizes.

 I decided the single-piece wings would be better printed in two sections each, so I used Lightwave 3D to cut each wing in half and add tabs and slots for joining purposes. 

All the sections were glued together with SuperGlue, with baking soda sprinkled onto any oozing wet glue to fill the joints and speed up the glue-setting process. When SuperGlue and baking soda combine, they set almost instantly like rock and can be sanded smooth.

Painting

The print layer marks and section joins were covered up with many coats of automotive spray primer, wet sanding in between each coat. Automotive body filler was also used to fill some areas where the printing had turned out a bit rough for some unknown reason, particularly around the root of the tail just below the central engine inlet. This was followed up by three of coats of white gloss spray paint, lightly sanding in between coats.

Leading edges of the wings, tail and engine nacelles were masked off using Yellow Frog Tape (for delicate surfaces) and sprayed with ‘Silver Gal’. This paint looked more like chrome than most aluminium-type spray paints.

 

Decals

I drew the decals using Affinity Designer software, overlaying the Ansett ‘Southern Cross’ tail artwork on a diagram I found of Eastern Airlines livery painting instructions. There were a number of Southern Cross livery illustrations on the web, but in order to make everything fit the model properly, it was easier to draw my own from scratch. I chose the Southern Cross livery because I liked it, and since the aircraft was all white in that colour scheme, the model would be easier to paint!

To make sure that all the decals were going to fit properly, I printed the decal sheet onto paper with a colour laserprinter. After a bit of test fitting and tweaking the design, the final decal sheet could be laserprinted onto an A4 sized water transfer sheet.

Making sure that the windows would fit properly.

The decal sheet. Freshly painted engines dry on screws attached to a scrap piece of MDF.

After the decals had been applied and a few days had passed to let them dry thoroughly, the model was finsihed off with a few coats of clear enamel.

The stand is a variation of the one I designed in Lightwave 3D for my Qantes 787 Dreamliner model, and also used for my Qantas Boeing 707 model.