1:400 2001-2014 Frontier Collection

bakejobb_23

Active member
Hello All,

Here I will be sharing a small sub-section of my fleet consisting of a few Frontier Airlines aircraft. While I will of course collect other liveries from this airline, I want to heavily focus in on (in my opinion) one of the many great liveries of the 2000s. Each plane wore these colors form about 2001 up until 2014 when the current color scheme was introduced (much worse and a downgrade in my opinion!). Each plane features a white fuselage with dark green engines and a massive "FRONTIER" title across the entire fuselage with the smaller phrase "A Whole Different Animal" in black. Each plane has a unique named animal featured on the tail, something that has stuck with the airline even today, of course. Aircraft to wear this livery include A318/319/320, CRJ-200 (Mesa Airlines), CRJ-700 (Horizon Air), DHC-8-Q400 (Lynx Air), E170/190 (Republic Airways). There may be more but I cannot find any in my research so far.

In 1:400​

In our world of 1:400, eight aircraft have been produced in this lovely livery with one on the way soon from our friends at @3D Design Deck ! Here is the list of them all down below. My info comes from MADb, so any corrections are welcome.

Organized by new to old release:
3D Design Deck CRJ-200LR "Mesa Tail" (N37342) - 2025* (Soon)
NG Models A318 "Montana the Elk" (N802FR) - 2024
NG Models A318 "Grizwald the Grizzly Bear" (N801FR) - 2024
NG Models A318 "Charlie the Cougar" (N807FR) - 2023
GeminiJets DHC-8-Q400 "Luke the Lynx Cub" (N501LX) - 2010
GeminiJets A319 "Perry the Horned Puffin" (N946FR) - 2007
GeminiJets A319 "Jack the Snowshoe Hare" (N940FR) - 2006
Dragon Wings A319 "Hamilton the Hummingbird" (N913FR) - 2003
Dragon Wings A319 "Sherman the Sea Lion" (N905FR) - 2003

Hoping for more releases in this beautiful livery as the years go on. Now for some pictures :)

Frontier A318-111​

Today I will show you guys the three A318s released by NG in the last few years. Frontier was the launch customer of the Airbus A318. Between 2003 and 2007, the airline took delivery of eleven of these aircraft. Unfortunately short lived, the retirement of the type began in 2010 and was completed by autumn 2013. All of Frontier's A318s were parted out for scrap. At the time, the five youngest examples had spent less than two and a half years in active service, while the oldest two were just over ten years old. The A318 spent their short years serving destinations out of Denver International Airport, configured with 114 seats, compared to 108 seats in the 737-200s that they started up with (thx for info purpleplane). All Frontier A318s had numbered registrations N8XXFR, starting at N801FR up to N810FR; Skipping N811FR which doesn’t exist and the last one was N812FR.

N802FR was delivered July 30, 2003. It was the second A318 delivered to Frontier and features "Montana the Elk" on the tail.
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N801FR was delivered on July 21, 2003. It was the first A318 delivered to Frontier and features "Grizwald the Grizzly Bear" on the tail.
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N807FR was delivered on October 26, 2004. It was the seventh A318 delivered to Frontier and features "Charlie the Cougar" on the tail.
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Just a few more shots to show off the amazing detail you receive from this NG mould. Some things are slightly off on the full frontal shot but are fairly negligible and not noticeable from any other angle. These were amazing purchases and I'd make them all over again ten fold.

Close up of the fuselage and some engine/landing gear detail. Note, again, all planes are the same minus the tail details as far as I can see:
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Underside:
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Full Frontal Shot. Tail is a bit askew on this model but isn't noticeable from any other angle. Each model has slight quirks which are honestly expected in this small of a scale to a degree. None that even close ruin a model for me:
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That is all for now! As I collect more, I will of course show them off in as great of detail as I can provide. More than likely, next will be the CRJ-200 from 3D Design Deck which I am very excited to see the finished product. I am also eyeballing one of the old DragonWings A319s on ebay, I should pull the trigger on that sooner than later as it is a decent price! Stay tuned.
 
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These are the only Frontiers that I have.

The A319 will be the only Dragon Wings one I need left! I just bought the one I mentioned I’ve been eyeing on ebay, which is the Sherman the Sea Lion tail. I love the livery they had before the 2000s colors as well but I must restrict myself as I still have a long way to go on my main US Airways collection😅😅…the 733s look lovely imo…one day maybe!
 
Great pics and models. The A318 story at Frontier seems to be such a waste of aircraft, in my opinion...

it’s a shame some of these frames had under 5 years of service life…hell all these frames deserved another 10-20 years on top of what they did at minimum. I’m glad some A318s are still around even though they are very limited in numbers nowadays. It is an aircraft I wish I could have flown on, especially the BA001 JFK-LHR-JFK route.
 
I believe they do but are retiring them in the next few years. Tarom has just recently retired the last few of theirs and BA got rid of theirs years ago. Otherwise I believe there’s still 20-30 private business jets/government properties still flying them (i.e. the recent NG releases) No other airlines were heavy operators of the type if I remember correctly (I just had the wiki open a half hour ago lol) Only 80-90 or so of the type were ever produced I think.
 
Do you have more info on the routes those things flew and why? They had to be fairly “specially selected” flights considering how small they were.
As far as I know, the A318s flew everywhere in the system. Despite their size, they were configured with 114 seats, compared to 108 seats in the 737-200s that they started up with.
 
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