of six months to make the premiere of the movie

‘Flyboys’. Today, the whole thing is really just a vague memory. Really, the movie was not much to

write home about, and all of us who know something about aircraft, and their military applications,

greeted the movie with a certain level of disappointment. Truth be told, despite having a few good

things about it, it received a generally failing grade.

But come to think of it, the only good thing about

the film that I can think of, at the moment, is that it

did yield one very nice model. And it gets another

chance to shine as a new Weekend Edition release.

Last week, I had a good look at the decal sheet for

this kit, and it, in and of itself, is a thing of beauty.

We picked out four Frenchmen, and each is a story fit for film on their own. We have Charles Nungesser, Paul Tarascon, Georges Matton, Mathieu

Tennant de la Tour. Foreign flown machines, no less

well-known or colourful, will be subjects for later

releases.

For February, we have the expected Spitfire Mk.IIa

in the ProfiPACK line. This boxing is the first of the

new graphic design type. Please note, that the

‘brass’ coloured portions of the box represent

just that…brass, and not wood. That is not really,

apparently, sinking in, and reactions so far have

been positive, except that comments about the

‘wood’ fields are leading ‘brass’ 72 to zip. But, we

will redouble our efforts and clear this up in favor

of the brass. Either way, though, it seems that the

change has been well received, something like the

new guise of the Weekend Edition boxes. We are

grateful for that. The assortment of options for the

Spitfire Mk.IIa can be seen in the Gallery. I would

like to point out one thing that you would surely

miss without a hint. It concerns the background,

and the shoreline below the aircraft. Piotr painted

the planes over the Normandy shores at Etretat.

If you don’t know about this spot, don’t sweat it.

Up until recently, I never knew it existed. In the

summer of 2019, when no one had any idea that

a year later we’d all be running around with masks on like a bunch of bandits, a part of our family

and some friends went on a vacation in Normandy. During the first week, we stayed at Ouistreham,

and I was completely satisfied there. Immediately,

I became a regular at the Le Bistrot D-Day (in Ouistreham, everything carries with it a D-Day reference). The idea that I would rather drag myself two

hours one way to stare at some cliffs somewhere

named Etretat instead of staying put drinking coffee and then switching over to beer, would not

have appealed to me at all. In the end, my loyalty

to my family and friends prevailed, and so I tagged

along. As it so often is in life, you find great pleasure where you least expect it. Etretat not only put a

spell over me with its scenery and atmosphere, but

the story that I came across at the top of that hill.

Or, at least, it reminded me of the story. There is

a memorial there dedicated to Nungesser and Coli,

because this was the last place where their aircraft,

INFO Eduard - February 2021

L’Oiseau Blanc, had been seen during their now-famous, tragic and secret flight from Paris to New

York. From the moment I saw the memorial, Charles Nungesser has captured my imagination. It’s not

that I hadn’t heard of him before, but I took him as

one of many flyers, one of many aces of the Great

War, and I never thought much more about the matter. That shouldn’t be taken as disrespect to heroes, it’s just the way that it is. There are many flyers

that have attained hero status. But, once I dove into

his wartime and postwar exploits, and uncovered

many mysterious facts and secrets connected with

his disappearance, I began to realize that this individual was one helluva a badass. Even back when we

were coming out with our 1:48th scale ProfiPACK

Nieuport 17, I wanted to write an article about the

man, but other things just kept getting in the way,

and I never got around to it. Around the middle of

January, as my brain was firing on all cylinders from

all the previous activity, I figured I would take the

weekend and put it all aside, and as a sort of therapy, I would write an essay about Nungesser. I didn’t

write much, because I got stuck right on the story

of his first wartime adventure. I was so suspicious

of its truthfulness that I began to research the matter in greater detail, and that’s what I am still doing

now. However, my reward has been a gaining of insight into the histories of Mors and Citroen, and the

mounted regiments of the German Imperial Army.

And that, I am sure you will understand, is well

worth it! So, at the moment, I don’t have my article. You may be wondering why I am explaining all

this, and the reason is that there is an interesting,

if unlikely, connection between the Spitfire (and its

boxart), the Nieuport, and the town of Etretat.

The third February release among kits is ‘Kampfstift’, which is the Do 17Z, based around the ICM kit,

in the Limited Edition line. This also has a connection to the Spitfire, just as the Bf 109E and the Bf

110C/D in the Adlerangriff and Adlertag kits did before, as Spitfire foes. Contrary to the Bf 109E and Bf

110C/D kits, we expanded the decal options in this

kit to cover a wider time span, approximately from

the end of 1939 to the winter of 1942. That covers

the beginning of the war, the invasion of Poland,

the Battle of France and Britain, the Balkans conflict, North Africa, across the Soviet planes and into

Finland. It’s a sort of a ‘Tour de Europe 1939-1942’.

The second, no less interesting article, is a study of

the Do 17Z from Mira Baric and will come out in the

March issue, and will be dedicated to the aircraft

coded 5K+AR from 7./KG 3. The article will describe

not only the combat career and final flight of this

aircraft, but also the story around the discovery and

salvage of its wreck and subsequent restoration.

This literary works are the base of our otherwise

a little uneventful advertising material and also are

one of the reasons why our newsletters are, and

have been for quite some time now, a much anticipated event among modellers. In this newsletter,

there are three such articles. Besides the aforementioned articles, there’s an article by Jan Zdiarsky about Lt. Col. John C. Meyer and a borrowed

Mustang named ‘Stardust’, with which Meyer had

the most successful day of his combat career. The

fact that the date of the events was September

11th, 1944, will not surprise anyone familiar with

Jan’s field of interest, and just serves to confirm

the importance of that date, a date that was made

possible by some very extraordinary men. Besides

focusing on Lt. Col. Meyer, the article describes

a day in the life of the 352nd FG and the missions

of the 8th USAAF.

The third article was written by Richard Plos. It’s

also a description of an event that, if it got into the

hands of a film script writer, it would be rejected on

the basis that it is too difficult to believe. Although,

getting back to the movie ‘Flyboys’, it could easily

also be the other way around. The article describes

the story of German fighter ace Willi Gabriel and

has a connection with not just at least two of our

kits, but also to historical research surrounding the

German fighter force during World War One. The

two kits in question are the 72nd scale Limited Edition kit Fokker Fokker! released this year in January

and the 48th scale ProfiPACK kit of the Fokker D.VII(Fok). Fokker Fokker! Is one of the kits that survived

the blaze and is available through to now. And even

that suggests something about the type in and of

itself!

And that’s it from me for now. I hope you find some

inspiration within the pages of the historical articles, and that you find the rest of the information

worthy of a close look.

HISTORICAL ARTICLES

Vladimir Sulc.

There are two articles to go along with the Do 17.

The first is written by Jan Bobek, and is dedicated to the fate of the crew of Do 17Z 7T+HH from

KGr.606. It is included in this newsletter, and believe

me when I tell you that it is some story, where the

commander of a Dornier becomes the commander

of a submarine. First, he was sunk by the British,

and the second time around, the Americans tried

to send him to the bottom. Then, the British tried

again. Ultimately, it was the French that got him.

At Dakar.

Happy Modelling!

eduard

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