Great kick-off my friend! Of course I also have this kit in the stash, along with the later re-issued Heller kit (all-white plastic) Regarding the lack of interior, a few curtains may do the trick, painted on the inside of the glass?. I shall try to remain seated untill the plane has come to a complete standstill at the gate, remaining strapped in. 🙂

Oh, that was one of my dream kits as a child. Really looking forward to seeing this finished!

Starting off

I attached the passengers' windows from the inside of the fuselage halves, also assembled the tail planes:

Some windows will need some rework, as tads of glue have somehow attacked them.

Surprisingly, panel lines are recessed, looking actually quite good!

The smaller fuselage windows are not represented well by Heller, as they do not attach "flush". I will check some net pics, just to be sure. If so, I will replicate them with Clearfix at final stages.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks my friend @gblair!

This is a good, solid kit with recessed panel lines (at most places); it offers no passenger interior, though; also landing gear, including bays, looks simplistic, cockpit is sparse-ish and so on. Those might irritate some modelers, but I am OK.

Decals look nicely printed, but I am not sure about the blue: it might have looked lighter in reality...I will use these decals, anyway...

I did some progress yesterday, in order to gain some momentum: I painted the cabin innards black, in order to hide the emptiness...

Here is the project so far:

Thanks for stopping by!

One can see you are qualified in aircraft structures my friend 🙂
Such a fast progress that I am really out of breath. On another note the black inside will help the outside finish when you get to paint it - I think it will look a lot less "plastic" if backlit? Just a thought.

You're off to a quick start Spiros, @fiveten
This Heller oldie is definitely in good hands to become a great looking airliner.
Looking at the last picture, next to the coffee mug, this aircraft is still large in 1/72.

Initial coarse sanding done, tailplanes added and liquefied styrene to (very) good use: