Those propeller mounts are unusual. And the tail uses some slope bits, I wonder why they left the nose so jagged?

Jeez even for the time this is lumpy looking

No wonder it costed only $2. It does have some charm to it, though.

Dang that is fugly.

I can imagine this set looking better with 90's parts. I love that era and the 4 stud wide planes.

23 pieces?!? That can’t be right...

@N8er said:
"23 pieces?!? That can’t be right... "

Agree, there's a good 23 pieces in the wings alone.

@Wavelength said:
"Those propeller mounts are unusual. And the tail uses some slope bits, I wonder why they left the nose so jagged?"

The propeller mounts were quite normal in the beginning and middle of the 80s, though the were primarily used for the tail rotor of helicopters.

When I was twelve, I could have told you exactly what make and model of airplane that is, but now I can only tell you what make and model of Lego set it is :(

Edit - with a bit of help from Google, I'd guess it's a Beechcraft Baron or Piper Seneca of some sort, but I haven't found a fleet history of Martinair to confirm that.

Surely that’s more than 23 pieces! Amazing to see how far planes have come since!

Ooh that’s a clunky looking thing isn’t it? Absolutely looks like something I would have built when I was a child, it’s quite nostalgic in a way

Bricklink says it's 77 pieces and calls it a Cessna. There are several Cessna business aircraft of that configuration dating to the 60s and 70s, so without a Martinair fleet list there's too little detail on this kit for me to positively identify exactly which model of Cessna is represented.

@iwybs said:
"When I was twelve, I could have told you exactly what make and model of airplane that is, but now I can only tell you what make and model of Lego set it is :(

Edit - with a bit of help from Google, I'd guess it's a Beechcraft Baron or Piper Seneca of some sort, but I haven't found a fleet history of Martinair to confirm that."

I have the box here (just got it last month), and it says "Martinair/Cessna PH-MAH". Although the registration is not realistic, just an abbreviation of MartinAir Holland.
Where the Legoland boxes used to be yellow, this one is red, which looks rather special.
Considering the availability of parts at the time, the design looks good imho.

23 pieces are just what's still available thru the current LEGO part offering - Brickset can only give the inventory count for what LEGO provides in the inventory feed.

To me, this style of build was a revelation growing up then. Like the plethora of curved and sloped parts we have now to improve over plates, this was innovative stacking of plates to improve over bricks at that time.

I wouldn't mind seeing more LEGO airline promos. Especially for airline onboard shops which always seem to be full of jewellery, bottles of whisky, etc., but the selection for kids tend to be lacking. During a holiday in the 80's I got the 1599 Britannia set - a very small and simple set, but it remained one of my favourite and most memorable sets of my childhood.

I remember having a similar Lego 687 Caravelle plane, where Lego had moved onto creating special pieces for the wings and tail, but this model would have provided more fun alternative builds. They both had similar wheel holdings that eventually broke after too many landings.

Wavelength is correct, there were more shallow 30 degree brick roof slopes (3x2 footprint) available for the cockpit noise if they wanted it too be smoother and less steep than the 45 degree tail roof slope.

Interesting that the tail is supported on 2x1 plates with a single middle stud. I did not think this part was available then in white, as only ever appeared in grey in classic Lego space to hold the spare oxygen at the front of the buggy. I don't remember it ever appearing that widely in Lego City even though so useful now.

@Vaionaut said:
" @Wrecknbuild said:
"I have the box here (just got it last month), and it says "Martinair/Cessna PH-MAH"."

It's probably supposed to be a Cessna 402B:
https://www.airliners.net/photo/Martinair-Holland/Cessna-402B/2740043 "

Thanks! What a perfect match!

@Vaionaut said:
" @Wrecknbuild said:
"I have the box here (just got it last month), and it says "Martinair/Cessna PH-MAH"."

It's probably supposed to be a Cessna 402B:
https://www.airliners.net/photo/Martinair-Holland/Cessna-402B/2740043 "

Danke!

I was at a museum yesterday with all kinds of Martinair stuff (Aviodrome). Coincidence.

Yeah, this one's kind of fugly, not going to lie. It's a turboprop airliner, like a De Havilland Canada Dash-8, affectionately known by pilots as the "Trash-8" or "Crash-8". Today, you will see these fuel-efficient aircraft on shorter trips, where they produce much less CO2 than a regional jet but are kind of sucky in weather, which the regional jets can just fly over.

No1 else noticed that this set shares a model number with 1990’s Police Car? (1610).
Don’t believe I’ve ever seen that before (where Two official Lego sets have the same number!!)

@iwybs said:
"When I was twelve, I could have told you exactly what make and model of airplane that is, but now I can only tell you what make and model of Lego set it is :(

Edit - with a bit of help from Google, I'd guess it's a Beechcraft Baron or Piper Seneca of some sort, but I haven't found a fleet history of Martinair to confirm that."

I've found two Martinair aircraft that look similar (PH-MLH and PH-MLN, both Piper Seminoles), but neither of these are the correct type of aircraft (differences in tail configuration, wingtips, etc).

As a point of interest, the only information I could find on aircraft with the registration PH-MAH was that this was once the registration of a Super Cub owned by Reclamair (this aircraft is now registered G-TUGG with the Ulster Gliding Club in the UK)

Yeah it’s blocky...
...but this was 1978, it looked amazing at the time!

Ahhhh. We used to have 3 of these.. but over the years we have lost soo many pieces.. :(

@Studio_Brickton said:
"No wonder it costed only $2. It does have some charm to it, though."

That's the same as about $7.91 in 2020.

@Minifig_Jez said:
"Yeah it’s blocky...
...but this was 1978, it looked amazing at the time!"

It was even blocky for it's time because of the tiny scale. See the Sea Plane 371-3 one year earlier to see how this looks in Minifig-Scale.

@TheK79_selbst said:
" @Minifig_Jez said:
"Yeah it’s blocky...
...but this was 1978, it looked amazing at the time!"

It was even blocky for it's time because of the tiny scale. See the Sea Plane 371-3 one year earlier to see how this looks in Minifig-Scale."

I had 687 ‘Caravelle Plane’ 5 years earlier in 1973, so I know it was a tiny scale, but I stand by my comment, it looked amazing at the time. My brothers and I had no wedge or curved plates, no shallow slopes, working with plates is what you had to do, especially at a tiny scale!

@lemish34 said:
"No1 else noticed that this set shares a model number with 1990’s Police Car? (1610).
Don’t believe I’ve ever seen that before (where Two official Lego sets have the same number!!)"

Actually, this happens quite a bit, especially when it's an unusual series of numbers or crossing themes over a large number of years. The most blatant example is 6848, which is the set number for two different Space sets only a couple of years apart...