County Durham firm builds jet model for US film director

Fighteraces, based in Chester-le-Street on Drum Industrial Estate, spent more than two and a half years and 5,000 hours building a radio-controlled model of a Fokker 70 airliner for the unnamed filmmaker based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Phil Clark, owner of Fighteraces, said: “The scale and complexity of this project was unlike anything we’ve ever done.

Fighteraces, a model aircraft maker based in Chester-le-Street, has completed its most ambitious project – a detailed radio-controlled Fokker 70 airliner built over 5,000 hours for a prominent American filmmaker in Atlanta, Georgia (Image: Supplied)

“It challenged us, but seeing the finished model ready to fly to the US makes it all worthwhile.”

The £100,000 model is a replica of a late-1990s Fokker 70.

It measures five metres long with a 4.5-metre wingspan and weighs 65kg, built primarily from carbon and glass fibre instead of traditional plywood and balsa wood.

With no kit or plans available, the Fighteraces team designed and constructed the entire model from scratch.

Only the engines and electronic flight systems were sourced externally.

The commission came via a recommendation from a client the firm had worked with more than 20 years ago.

The filmmaker was so impressed with the work that he commissioned a second model, twice the size of the first, before the initial project was even completed.

That model is now halfway through construction.

Fighteraces operates out of a 1,000 square foot workshop and also supplies materials to hobbyists worldwide.

The finished Fokker 70 model is now being prepared for shipment to the United States.

The project has attracted significant attention online and has led to new enquiries from around the globe.