The instruction sheet should be readable by almost anyone, as it contains whopping 2 steps! Start with the fuselage construction. Sanding and preparation for gluing will take a lot of work. I spent the better part of 8 hours to get the fuselage ready for priming. Several more were spent with touch ups. I found that only super glue would bond the parts properly. It was also used to fill the gaps and irregular curves. Only the vertical tail has detailing lines, which are heavily done. I did not bother filling them. The wings are cast with wrap around leading and trailing edges. This led to some very minor flash, that is easily cleaned up. I proceeded to glue the engines together, rather than mate the wing halves. The benefit of this was that some major sanding and or cutting has to be done in order to get a reasonable fit. Test fit the engines to their places on the wing with the whole assembly remaining unglued. Two engines will need major sanding of their mounts to fit down into place, as they are too wide. Another will be too thin and requires putty to blend the mount into the part on the wing. The last one is too short, and will only contact the rear section of the mount. Putty or styrene can be forced into the gap, then sanded into shape. I eventually started with the glue at the inboard engine, got it in place, and then glued along the leading edge and wing root. The outboard one was glued in place, then glue followed around the remaining leading edge.

The tail simply slides through the opening in the fuselage, and pops in place. You will literally hear a pop, as the parts connect. Only a few passes with sandpaper will correct the flash on the tail section. There we have it, a constructed 747 in 1/100 scale. Since I have a collection of other airline promo kits, this one fits right in. It is not 100% accurate for dimensions and scribing, but it looks like a 747. Painting will help transform this kit into a decent model. The decals supplied are for Air Canada's current scheme. It includes the maple leaves, nameplate and windows.

I left the wings and tails unglued until after painting was completed. This helped with the color break between the various parts. This was especially helpful for my kit, as I choose to mask up the new Canadian Scheme. All the work spent filling and sanding will pay off at this point. Several coats of gloss white were laid down and set to dry. The wings were sprayed using Canadian Voodoo grey, and a flint grey / stainless steel mix for the in-spar panels. The engine exhaust cones were painted with aluminum. After several days, the fuselage was masked for the red stripe. I only masked for the division between the white and red. The over spray eventually would be covered by the blue bottom. I used a side profile from a monthly in-flight magazine to get the proper bird shape. It was photocopied to size and traced onto Tamiya Tape. This was then applied to both sides. (Having taken the reverse image into account!)

After the bird was masked, the entire model was masked off to prevent any blue from intruding onto the white sections. I did take one liberty with the paint job - adding an eye to the bird! Some people will understand the joke. Once all the paints had cured suitably, the parts were SuperGlued together. The window decals were placed and a final gloss coat applied to the entire model. It is now resting and curing!

Although this kit turned out to be another typical Hobbycraft product, I enjoyed the experience. Will I ever do another? Well I'm glad CP Air never had the 400 series... but the stock decals do look appealing. Then again, we may see a new paint job soon.....