I cannot tell a lie, it was me that done it. :)
Those two are the result of finding that one of my large stock of Airfix DC9-30s had no landing gear, no idea why. So I thought the long one up, the 'TW', so I could make one aircraft out of two but only use one set of landing gear. The backstory says that McD built it as the largest possible DC9 variant using the original high lift wings of the -30 when they realised that a much better wing was needed to fly the up-coming -80 series, later to become the MD-80 of course.
The DC9-60TW, its full title, used two sets of -30 wings but didn't need a tailplane of course, but it did need larger engines so they came from a Welsh Models MD-82 kit, of which I have four (!). McD only built the one -60TW and farmed it out amongst various airlines to trial the idea but only AirCal liked it enough to buy it (and because I LOVE the colour scheme and had four ATP AirCal decal sheets.
Then I needed something to do with the bits left over, despite the lack of landing gear, and the BJ was the result. The wings are one set of the -30's tailplanes and the tails are the other set sawn down a bit. The engines have to be mounted to the fin as their mounting pylons are used as wing mounts. The nosegear came from the MD-82 kit and the main gear legs are lengths of piano wire bent to shape. The colour scheme is a fictional one from my ex-employers who are based in Eden Prairie, MN, as I had the logos and corporate colour (Pantone 200 BTW....) already on my laptop.
Both of them will be entered in the appropriate Class at this year's SMW at Telford next weekend where hopefully they'll shock a few JMNs.
