PAUL'S INDIANA JONES' MATCHBOX MBX AIRLINER

As part of both the 2023 and 2024 Sky Busters aircraft line, Matchbox have included two aircraft from the Indiana Jones movies. Actually, both models are based on aircraft from the first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

I was lucky enough to pick up the River Flyer biplane not long along, which has already appeared on Moonbase Central.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2024/04/indiana-jones-and-matchbox-river-flyer.html

My latest Sky Busters find was the Indiana Jones MBX Airliner model. Which is clearly a 1930s Douglas DC-3 airliner.

This aircraft appears briefly in the film, but the footage is re-used from an earlier film, the 1973 version of Lost Horizon. In Raiders, the DC-3 is superimposed on a map showing the flight route from Nepal to Cairo, in Egypt.

The Matchbox model is their standard Airliner, which carries a copyright date of 2003 on the underside. Over the years, it has been released in numerous versions.

This has a silver-painted metal upper fuselage and tail unit, with the lower fuselage and wings in silver plastic. The undercarriage, and the four-bladed propellers are black plastic (the real DC-3 had three-bladed propellers).

The cockpit and cabin windows are printed on in black. There is some Chinese writing on the forward fuselage, above the windows, along with Air East Asia in black, with the first letter of each word in orange.

This was clearly a cheap model for Matchbox to produce, as they could use an existing casting. The Waco biplane was a new model.

The plane comes in the usual clear plastic bubble, glued to a backing card, with the Indiana Jones logo, and a photo of Harrison Ford. Behind the model is a 4 inch by 4 inch card playmat, which opens out to 8 inches by 4 inches.

One side carries the Indiana Jones logo, and a map of the lower United States and Central America - not Nepal to Cairo. The other has a snowy looking runway, with a 2023 copyright date for Mattel.

A great little model, and a nice companion for the Waco.

Paul Adams from New Zealand