EDITORIAL

Dear Friends and Fellow Modellers,

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2023.

The January issue traditionally introduces our planned projects for the year. This

year will be no different, so we’ll waste no

time and get right down to the nitty gritty.

We’ll start off with January, new releases

for which are already available from our

e-shop and have been since last week.

New Kits for January

For the second time in a row, a new

release within the ProfiPACK line untraditionally draws on plastic from an external

source. Such sources are generally used

by us in releasing kits in our Limited Edition line, but there have been some exceptions in the past. In December, we released

a 1:72nd scale Bf 109E-3 with the plastic

coming from Special Hobby, and last year

in February, the ProfiPACK line saw a Hurricane Mk.I that hailed from the Polish

firm Arma Hobby. This time around, again

in 1:72nd, we have a B-25J based around

the Hasegawa molds, along the same

lines as September’s Limited Edition ‘Gunn’s Bunny’. I expect this ProfiPACK B-25J

Straffer, a B-25J with the metal plated

gunned nose, will be just as popular as

Gunn’s Bunny, not just because of an attractive assortment of accessory items,

but also because the marking options

include items that simply could not be

included in Gunn’s Bunny due to space limitations. That felt like a crime. But the development of this item was not to just create

the opportunity to rectify said crime. It

was more of a response to the slowing of

the market brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The market slowing was a

reaction to this idiotic war. Between April

4

INFO Eduard

and September of last year, it dropped our

sales by some twenty percent, and we reacted by reducing the number of editions

of some of our kits, notably in the Limited Edition line. That gave us a surplus of

B-25J plastic, that was then diverted to

this January release.

Coincidentally, we have another 72nd scale twin coming out this month, the Bf 110E.

It is a repop of the original ProfiPACK, and

signals a continuation of the return of the

Bf 110 family to our catalog. January has

a total of three such re-editions, and besides the aforementioned Bf 110E, we have

our tried and tested P-400 Airacobra in

1:48th, and the recently sold out A6M2 Zero

Model 21.

Besides the four ProfiPACKS, we have

a couple of new Weekend kits, the Sopwith Camel with a Clerget engine and the

Spitfire Mk.Vb. The Mk.Vb is an extremely

complicated type, featuring a host of consecutive manufacturing modifications. The

subtype being released this month can be

considered, albeit as a bit of an oversimplification, a mid production version, characterized by an armored windscreen and

a newer wing with asymmetrical kidney

shaped cannon fairings under the wings.

New Kits for February

Coming in February is the 48th scale Limited Edition kit of the Hind-E. The kit will

feature Zvezda’s plastic and eight marking

options. Besides masks and coloured photoetched, accessories will include Brassin

wheels, chaff/flare dispensers and GPS

antennae. The theme of the markings is

geared towards service with the air forces

of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.

As with our other 72nd and 48th scale Hind

kits previous, this edition will include a publication from noted Czech military pilot

Jaroslav Spacek.

The Hind E is historically a striking subject

matter for a kit, and one that we will return to one more time in 2023 with a specific item. No less striking, however, is the

ProfiPACK Fokker D.VII (AOW), signaling

a return to World War One subjects. This kit

was originally envisioned as a re-edition

of the most successful of the Fokker D.VII

kits, the ProfiPACK Fokker D.VII (OAW) with

the catalog number 8131. But because this

was repeatedly reissued several times in

the past, we decided to create a new item

this time around. The boxart shows what

is quite possibly the most depicted aircraft

of the First World War, Lo!, flown by Lt.

Ernst Udet, during combat in the cockpit of

a very elegant Fokker D.VII which this popular aviation personality flew during that

time. The aircraft carried the somewhat

enigmatic inscription ‘Du Doch Nicht!!’ on

the elevators and was shot down by defensive fire from the Breguet being attacked.

January 2023