I apologise beforehand for the post
But I want to know WHY !??
From GJ, Phoenix, JC and now NG!.
Air India models are Sold like hot cakes on eBay, on FB and they don’t even cross the minds of these manufacturers!.
Aero classics Yes did make a couple ones and GJ Made B747 in current colours and they are nearly sold out, I commend them for that.
But I’m honestly pissed paying way over an honest amount to acquire any model of Air India; be it B77W, B787, A321, ATR-42
And not to mention the Ultra Rare Big Bird Queen B747.
Last model Phoenix produced was B787 and that was in 2012 !.
The latest example of a bidding is added as a photo.
P.S: Indian Airlines are always given a miss and JC just release Vistara Dreamliner but their actual due date is always a guess.
Indigo is such a major player in Asia and has over 250 A320 and 500+ in orders, yet its never made.
Same is for Air Asia India, SpiceJet, Go Air(only once made with wrong Reg by AC) again a rare one.
And NG did give a glimmer of hope of a Bluedart B757 months back and nothing happened.
I hope you all would understand my frustration of not being able acquire any model and hence this post.
Yikes! That is a LOT for a modern 787 model! I hear your frustration. What makes me frustrated is when two or more manufacturers make the same thing within months of each other. Countless models that could be made but they choose to make the same things. It should be obvious now which manufacturer is superior at making which model, and they should focus on cranking out models they are known to be best at.
Harvey
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Most Recent Arrivals: GJ200 American Airlines MD-83 N9621A
Previous Arrivals: 1/200 JC United B757-200 Battleship
Karan--NG Models' Facebook page has a March 24 message asking for help with three L-1011 liveries / colors of wings, etc.: TAP Air Portugal, Sands Las Vegas, and....Air India. I know the L-1011 wasn't an Air India regular, but hey, it's Air India! We'll see if they make it, of course.
Jim
__________________ The greatest need in 1:400:Reissues of Major Passenger-Carrier 747 Classics: -100/200, -300, and SP, of NG / Aeroclassics / Big Bird Mk. 1 quality. Examples: American; United Blue-Star, Bass; TWA double globe, double stripe; Pan Am delivery; British Airways Negus, Landor; KLM 70's-80's blue top; Air France 70's-80's; Lufthansa 70's-80's; Aer Lingus delivery; Sabena 80's circle-s; Japan Air Lines 70's-80s; All Nippon 70's; and Qantas 70's-80's.
Last edited by BWI-ROCman; 03-30-2020 at 08:37 PM.
Yikes! That is a LOT for a modern 787 model! I hear your frustration. What makes me frustrated is when two or more manufacturers make the same thing within months of each other. Countless models that could be made but they choose to make the same things. It should be obvious now which manufacturer is superior at making which model, and they should focus on cranking out models they are known to be best at.
Harvey
That is a bit of a non-starter. You've got to remember that the manufacturers are in it to make money not please collectors alone. Gemini are hardly likely to cede making 787s to NG and Phoenix just because there mould is not competitive for example. And they shouldn't either. It is up to collectors to vote with their wallets but far too many people really seem to have little clue, or care, about what they are buying.
JC Wings have also just released a Jet Airways 737 MAX-8
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Richard
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That is a bit of a non-starter. You've got to remember that the manufacturers are in it to make money not please collectors alone. Gemini are hardly likely to cede making 787s to NG and Phoenix just because there mould is not competitive for example. And they shouldn't either. It is up to collectors to vote with their wallets but far too many people really seem to have little clue, or care, about what they are buying.
JC Wings have also just released a Jet Airways 737 MAX-8
Karan is right though. Indian air carriers are under-represented and they sell well when they are available. Phoenix did an Air India 772 years ago with too much of a faded look, Gemini did an Air India 773 back in 2010 on its now very-outdated 777 mould, and besides a smattering of Jet Airways models, no one has touched IndiGo or Spicejet. Somehow a lot of the more obscure Chinese carriers make it out before an Indian airline does. I get the finance part and bias towards their own national carriers, but it's not like these models won't sell.
P.S. In the same vein, I'll also begrudgingly give credit to Aeroclassics for putting out an Air India A310
Karan is right though. Indian air carriers are under-represented and they sell well when they are available. Phoenix did an Air India 772 years ago with too much of a faded look, Gemini did an Air India 773 back in 2010 on its now very-outdated 777 mould, and besides a smattering of Jet Airways models, no one has touched IndiGo or Spicejet. Somehow a lot of the more obscure Chinese carriers make it out before an Indian airline does. I get the finance part and bias towards their own national carriers, but it's not like these models won't sell.
P.S. In the same vein, I'll also begrudgingly give credit to Aeroclassics for putting out an Air India A310
Agreed. I wasn't disagreeing with the original posts intent. I'd like to see more Indian airliners too especially from the 90s - Air Sahara, Jet Airways 737-300s, Jet Airways 73G, East-West 737-200, Air Deccan A320.
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Richard
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If an Air India 787 done by PHX can sell for 250 USD and Air India 777W sells for 200 USD. This very much tell us that these models are in extreme demand,and specially when these have been done ten years ago.The makers very well know that these will sell but after all its pure discrimination that comes into play. There are so many airliners that have never been done(Indigo,Vistara,Air Asia India).But we will only see Emirates,Delta and American,United and Delta being done again and again.God knows why cant we have one Indian release in a year.Is it that hard.
Thanks for understanding,
and I do understand the economics of it Richard, I am pursuing Like-CPA course of America in India and I get the economics & demand- supply of these models.
Still I debate on the point that with every release; GJ is flooding with EK and Loads of American releases, you have Phx making those Chinese Releases and JC copying GJ & Phx on so many of their release. It's Pointless to an extent!
I sure did see a glimmer of hope when NG started replying to us, they DID give us hints and Took our opinions on the very same platform of a Bluedart B757, it still is not made!
Sorry to NG until I see a L-1011 of AI with my own eyes, I'm a little skeptical with them.
Sure Yes JC did release a Vistara B789! but again we all know JC production cycles don't co relate with their releases and an actual can be a good 2-3 years away from being sold to us.
But the only point I make from all the above is that "IF Indian models were NOT soo collectible or desired, why do we don't have them for sale anywhere?. And if they are listed then you have an example above how much it went for."
P.S : It went for GBP 180 and another B787 is listed on Ebay.com for $200, and mind you me, we don't see an Air India B77W on eBay at all.
If even let's assume they release 10 models on an average in a month and there are 12 months, then 120 Models/ Manufacturer Annually.
Therefore, we can say its been almost 8 years i.e 960 models ( 8X120) later we still don't have a single Indian model. And that's only for one manufacturer..
and that's appalling!
P.S: hats off to Andrew, he has been giving us something in between so that are still playing around.
I do agree with karan's view on manufacturers forgetting airlines from India. There are quite a few interesting schemes which might interest many collectors from the list below ;
1.There are few liveries were the manufacturers time on art work is negligible
STAR ALLIANCE AIR INDIA 777-300 and A320 neo
Spice jet hybrid livery -NOK air 737
Air india cargo A310 (aeroclassics recent release)
Air asia A320 the pioneer livery (tribute to the father of commercial aviation in India)
Air india 747 (Tribute to Gandhi)
2. There are few liveries which have so much significance in the asian market
Indigo A320 (Top ten LCC in the world)
Vistara A320 (Singapore airlines stake)
3. The special liveries coming out of India
Vistara retro A320
Air india A320 AIDS livery from 2007
Air india hyrbrid INDIAN livery
Jet airways Disney 737 livery
Air deccan
I do agree with karan's view on manufacturers forgetting airlines from India. There are quite a few interesting schemes which might interest many collectors from the list below ;
1.There are few liveries were the manufacturers time on art work is negligible
STAR ALLIANCE AIR INDIA 777-300 and A320 neo
Spice jet hybrid livery -NOK air 737
Air india cargo A310 (aeroclassics recent release)
Air asia A320 the pioneer livery (tribute to the father of commercial aviation in India)
Air india 747 (Tribute to Gandhi)
2. There are few liveries which have so much significance in the asian market
Indigo A320 (Top ten LCC in the world)
Vistara A320 (Singapore airlines stake)
3. The special liveries coming out of India
Vistara retro A320
Air india A320 AIDS livery from 2007
Air india hyrbrid INDIAN livery
Jet airways Disney 737 livery
Air deccan
That's the same thing which goes through my mind Like Always!...
And I super agree on the Star Alliance Liveries, and JC did make the Star Alliance AI B787 VT-ANU 4 years back I guess and its sold out too now, kinda rare as well.
Also there's a special thing about Air India Star Alliance A320 is that it's double bogey landing gears and that is ONE OF ONE in the world, there's uniqueness all on its own.
I'm wondering how popular is collecting in India? I'm sure given the amount of people, there must be a market. Maybe that plays into it?
i have heard AI isnt a very popular airline to colellect. Most of these model manufacturers are asian based and therefore if you notice most of the models are all asian airlines being manufactured regulalry. Air india and Indian aircraft models are among the rarest and someone else told me they arent very popular among collectors. Although i am a huge fan and AI and indian based models and memorabilia is all i colelct. I do wish all of the above models with their special livery will be made!
Karan is right though. Indian air carriers are under-represented and they sell well when they are available. Phoenix did an Air India 772 years ago with too much of a faded look, Gemini did an Air India 773 back in 2010 on its now very-outdated 777 mould, and besides a smattering of Jet Airways models, no one has touched IndiGo or Spicejet. Somehow a lot of the more obscure Chinese carriers make it out before an Indian airline does. I get the finance part and bias towards their own national carriers, but it's not like these models won't sell.
P.S. In the same vein, I'll also begrudgingly give credit to Aeroclassics for putting out an Air India A310
I agree! Manufacturers believe there is no market to collect Indian aircraft in general.
I do agree with karan's view on manufacturers forgetting airlines from India. There are quite a few interesting schemes which might interest many collectors from the list below ;
1.There are few liveries were the manufacturers time on art work is negligible
STAR ALLIANCE AIR INDIA 777-300 and A320 neo
Spice jet hybrid livery -NOK air 737
Air india cargo A310 (aeroclassics recent release)
Air asia A320 the pioneer livery (tribute to the father of commercial aviation in India)
Air india 747 (Tribute to Gandhi)
2. There are few liveries which have so much significance in the asian market
Indigo A320 (Top ten LCC in the world)
Vistara A320 (Singapore airlines stake)
3. The special liveries coming out of India
Vistara retro A320
Air india A320 AIDS livery from 2007
Air india hyrbrid INDIAN livery
Jet airways Disney 737 livery
Air deccan
It's all about the money. The main reason Air India has been ignored by manufacturers especially Geminijets is probably the 747-400 they made. Every Air India 747 1/400 prior to the GeminiJets release was rare and hard to find, and already sold out. Its been like 2-3 years or something now and GeminiJets still has their 747-400 widely available when they probably expected it to do as well as the AV400, BigBird400, and Witty versions had done. In my opinion, there is a market for Air India if you don't make in such massive quantities.
It's all about the money. The main reason Air India has been ignored by manufacturers especially Geminijets is probably the 747-400 they made. Every Air India 747 1/400 prior to the GeminiJets release was rare and hard to find, and already sold out. Its been like 2-3 years or something now and GeminiJets still has their 747-400 widely available when they probably expected it to do as well as the AV400, BigBird400, and Witty versions had done. In my opinion, there is a market for Air India if you don't make in such massive quantities.
Then I guess you'd have to increase the price, which leads to the same predicament the OP is complaining about (albeit probably not as bad).
Just noticed that in the photos. Had no idea such an A320 existed. Is there a particular reason they are the only ones with such gear?
Harvey
Low ground pressure. Same reason that Soviet era airliners like the Ty-154 for example have multi-wheel bogies compared to equivalent Western types. Enables aircraft to operate from airfields with poorer surface strength.
Low ground pressure. Same reason that Soviet era airliners like the Ty-154 for example have multi-wheel bogies compared to equivalent Western types. Enables aircraft to operate from airfields with poorer surface strength.
Thanks for that info! At first I thought I learned something new just now, but then I remembered reading about this exact reason at the Air Force Museum in Ohio on why the B-36 Peacemaker did not use the original main landing gear pictured in the link below.
Air India were certainly one of those enigmatic carriers, from a western European or English viewpoint - a classic insignia one always liked to see.
Just one of those classic original carriers like BOAC, Pan Am, TWA, American, KLM, Lufthansa, Qantas, SAS, Olympic, Air Canada, TAP, Iberia, Swissair, JAT etc etc.
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Nick Moss
Holy Grails Boeing 707 of Ethiopian (Done)/Royal Jordanian/Tarom/Dan Air/Florida West/Tampa/Millon Air/Air Zimbabwe (Done)/Azerbaijan, DC-8 of Air Spain/Surinam-KLM(Done)/Seaboard World, Tu134 Aviogenex/Malev/Aeroflot(Done)/Balkan, Tu154 Malev, IL76 Mahan Air, IL18 Tarom/Malev, Caravelle Trans Europa/Syrian Air, plus any AN12, Tu114, IL14.
Favourite manufacturers - Aeroclassics ("just like a fine wine, they only get better with age"), also like El Aviador, and NG Models.
See there's too much to be made and still we don't see nothing..
And I do see an Air India L-1011 coming up, but can we please get something in Current Liveries to get in the new collectors ??
I honestly feel, in spite of the re-release of a Herpa Model they could have made something in the current scheme... It's like making something and ensuring it failure altogether when there's definitely soo much to be made.
Nevertheless I'll be getting a couple for myself but it won't gather as much as an interest as a B747 (Classic Livery) or B787, B77W, A320 or any other airline like Indigo, Vistara, Air Asia India would have gotten.
So I can just use this medium to display my disappointment as I can't manufacture something myself.
P.S : Hoping some decision maker reads this thread and realises something.
As far as I'm concerned, Air India is a classic flag carrier so should sell well. Here is my Air India collection in 1/400. I think it has had its fair share of models made over the years.
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