Being a big fan of Russian airliners, I was really excited to hear Zvezda was releasing a newly tooled Tu 134.
The gray styrene molding includes a sturdy display stand. Surface detail is outstanding, with finely engraved panel lines that are among the best I have ever seen. Unlike some of Zvezda’s earlier airliner releases, there’s a little more engraving depth to the aileron hinges for a very convincing effect. The kit can be built in one of two versions, the glazed-nose Tu 134a or the solid-nose Tu 134B. The Aeroflot decals are crisply printed and in register.
The fuselage windows are molded open; the windows are glued in before joining the fuselage halves. However, I decided to leave the windows out to avoid the tedious chore of masking all those tiny circles prior to painting. Instead, I filled them in with Kristal Klear after painting and before decaling.
The fuselage halves fit perfectly; polishing with a fine sanding stick rendered the seams invisible. I did add a small fishing sinker to the nose before gluing the cockpit window to make sure the model stayed sitting on its landing gear. You have the option of building the model with the gear up; the slot for the mounting stand in the lower wing must be carefully opened up.
The upper wing halves joined the lower wing with the seams falling on panel lines. The wings also fit perfectly! I decanted Tamiya spray TS-26 for the white on the fuselage and used Tamiya XF-21 for the gray on the wings and lower fuselage. Instead of masking the tiny cockpit windows, I tried something different: I painted over the cockpit with the white paint and, when it was dry, used a black fine-point Sharpie to color the windows. It worked OK, but next time I will paint the inside of the windows black and mask the outside.
The engines, main wing, and horizontal stab assemblies fit so well that I did all the painting and decaling before adding them to the fuselage. Everything fit firmly, even without glue; I did add a little anyway just to make sure things stayed put.
I saved the landing gear until the rest of the model was finished. The gear is amazing: extremely delicate and looking very much to scale. I was worried that it might not be able to support the model, but so far it’s standing fine.
Due to the fabulous fit of the parts and the low parts count, I only spent about 10 hours on my model — and it looks fantastic! Still, because of the delicate landing gear, I would recommend this kit to experienced modelers. I hope Zvezda keeps releasing airliner models with this same high quality and attention to detail!
A version of this review appeared in the February 2013 FineScale Modeler.