The marking options are a collection of

six choices used in previous issues of the

Fokker D.VII OAW kit. All in all, the options

offer an attractive set of both striking and

historically significant aircraft that includes among others the red and white aircraft flown by Lt. Kurt Monington of Jasta

18 with a raven and skull on the fuselage

and another famed Fokker with artwork

inspired by a fable of the Seven Swabians

(the Brothers Grimm) from Jasta 65.

The February ProfiPACK line picks up with

the Zero line, and will come in the form of

an A6M3 Model 22/22a. It contains decals

for five aircraft that served with ground

based units of the Japanese Navy in the

South Pacific and Japan. And be aware,

the A6M3 Model 22 is not identical to the

Model 32!

Carrying on with the Pacific theme, we

have another kit, the Spitfire Mk.VIII in

1:48th, which is being released as a Weekend kit. The kit is based around the proven Spitfire Mk.IX/VIII/16 molds, and same

as other February new kit releases, it is

a component of our range renewal efforts.

The decal options will allow building one

of four aircraft that served with the RAAF

in Australia and Indonesia, and within the

RAF in Italy and Burma.

Another item for February’s Weekend line

and based on older but proven molds is

our popular Fw 190A-8/R2 ‘Sturmbock’

in 1:72nd scale. These armored machines

were developed for combat with American

four engined bombers and their kits are

traditionally among our best selling items.

One interesting fact related to this is that

the subtypes Fw 190A-8 and Fw 190A-8/R2

account for half of all Fw 190 kit sales,

which is furthermore the most popular

type of aircraft we have kitted in terms of

sales. This kit includes four marking options from JG 3, JG 4 and JG 300. The boxart

depicts some of the most dramatic aerial

combat to take place during the Second

World War over Austria.

A significant force behind the momentum

of our aforementioned range revival comes

in the form of the only February re-edition.

This is the ProfiPACK Bf 110E in 1:48th. This

is the first Bf 110 release in 1:48th since

our fire, the second anniversary of which

came just before Christmas on December

19th. The re-emergence of these kits had

to wait that long due to production capacity limits. In the coming months, Bf 110 kits

in both 48th and 72nd scales will be expanding into the ProfiPACK and Weekend

lines, and both kits will come back in the

Limited Edition family as well, under the

name Adlertag. At approximately the midway point of the year, the much requested Bf 110G-4, catalog Number 8208, will

be making a comeback.

mited Edition kit dubbed ‘Guadalcanal’.

This will be dedicated to the F4F-4 Wildcat

early and late versions. It will be another

of the Dual Combo kits, with two complete kits in the package. In this case, it will

be one set for the early version F4F-4,

the other will be geared towards the later

variant. These differ in the fuselage. The

decal options will cover not only Guadalcanal operations conducted by the Cactus

Air Force, but also aircraft operating off of

aircraft carriers in various regions of the

PTO during the same timeframe.

In March, the ProfiPACK line will see

another 48th scale Spitfire, this time the

Mk.Vc Trop and a 72nd scale Bf 109E-4. The

Weekend line will grow by a 72nd scale Bf

110G-2, while the re-edition concept will be

applied to the MiG-21bis and Avia B.534 of

the fourth production series. Both of these

will be in 1:48th. Actually, I can’t rule out

that the MiG might be a new item with new

markings. We have what we need to go

down that road.

Kits for the Second Quarter

Truth be told, every year I have a greater

problem with the structuring of information regarding planned kits for the upcoming twelve months. It’s mostly the result

of the sheer number of new releases that

come out each year. Despite the fact that

many modellers on internet forums complain that we release too few kits and the

wait times are long, we do put out some

seventy new items per year. That sort of

a schedule makes it very difficult to put together a summary of all planned releases.

There is also the perception held by many

modellers that only the initial release of

a given kit can and should be considered

a true new release. Anything else is often considered a repop and is overlooked

by both the buying public and reviewers.

I have a problem with this, because at least

in our case, the re-editions are carefully

planned items and not straight repops. It’s

not like we put the exact same items into

twenty different boxes. Each of our projects includes as much as a dozen sprues.

Typically, we try to group into main sprues

all of the fine details that will be common

for a specific type, and complement these

with version specific sprues that hold fuselages and wings that are the items that

normally will bear the brunt of the differences. The kit then contains the relevant

combination of sprues. As a goal, we avoid

requiring the end user to apply any surgery to these types of things, which would

allow a certain level of modularization.

This would be a comparatively comfortable

‘out’ and would be pretty cheap to boot, but

the same cannot be said for the modeller.

So, we reject that route and keep the end

user at a higher level of priority, which explains why we include version specific fuselages and wings of a given type.

It will be during the second quarter when

this philosophy will show itself in all its

glory. That is when we will be unveiling

our Rufe. Formally, it is a version of the

New Kits for March

For March, we are prepping for the continuation of the Wildcat series with a Li-

January 2023

INFO Eduard

5