Liveries Unlimited 1/144 MD-80/87/90 Inspar Panels

By Chris Banyai-Riepl

Minicraft’s 1/144 MD-80 kit marks the pinnacle of quality for that manufacturer, with exquisite detailing and excellent fit.  The wide variety of operators around the world means that there’s no shortage of interesting liveries out there, and I’m sure that airliner modelers around the world have a growing stash of MD-80 kits growing in their closet. 

As nice as the kit is, though, there is one problem.  The MD-80 easily has one of the most complex wings in terms of painted versus unpainted areas.  To make matters even worse, there are a wide variety of variations out there, resulting in a hodge-podge of patterns that add to the intrigue of the MD-80 as well as the teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling of modelers wanting to replicate it.

To the rescue comes Liveries Unlimited with this new sheet solely for the wings of the MD-80 family.  The vast majority of the sheet is covered with gray decals, 47 in all (although three of those are extra sections of color for covering mistakes).  Down at the bottom of the sheet are two small sections with additional detail markings such as walkway stenciling.  The instructions are quite good and provide both a diagram of where everything goes and notes on variations seen.  You’ll want to read through these and then hit the reference section before committing decal to wing, as there are variations out there.  Check airliners.net for photos of the specific plane you want and go from there.

This sheet is an excellent addition to the MD-80 kit and you should get one for every MD-80 kit in your closet.  The amount of time it will save in masking and painting more than offsets the cost of the sheet.