Editorial

I know I’m not alone, when a concept and its associated assumptions turn out exactly opposite to what the expected outcome was. The last time it happened to me was a month ago in Nuremberg. You may remember what I expected from the fair from my previous editorial. Virtually nothing came of my skeptical predictions. Not that the fair is back to where it was in the old days before covid lockdowns, but it was significantly livelier, more interesting and ultimately more fun and useful than I would have dared to expect. I would venture to guess that among the vendors who participated, I am not alone in my adjusted assessment. Among other things, the situation from last year was repeated, that conversations and meetings were much warmer, friendlier and more open than at any time in the past. Maybe it's just my feeling, but it seemed like we enjoyed seeing each other again, in many cases even after several years. It was the type of thing that leads you to realize how those people you maybe took for granted and didn't think anything special of grew closer to your heart and you understand just how much you missed them. That led in turn to conversations opening up and that can only be good. Otherwise, everything was at least a bit different. For example almost nowhere in the venue, in any restaurant, at any stand, could you pay cash, everything had to be paid for by plastic. And the steaks, those wonderful steaks I have written about in the past that were being served up at a little stand between the halls, were turkey instead of the earlier pork. But, at least, they were back.

 This year, our long run of Model of the Year awards from Modell Fan came to an end. It will be the first time in thirty years that we left without a medal. But, don’t mistake that for me bitching about it. Take it more as a sign of how things are changing. I could even take it from an optimistic point of view, and entertain the possibility that we have exited the mainstream competition and are in a league of our own. But coming back down to earth, it's more likely because we stopped sending Modell Fan samples, so really, we asked for it!

March New Releases

 The new items for March have already been on sale for a week. Of all the seventy-five new releases in March, we devoted the most time and effort out of everything we did to the Freedom Fighter kit. This is a 1:48 scale F-5E Tiger II, with moldings from the Taiwanese firm AFV Club. A large chunk of real estate is also dedicated to this aircraft in today's issue of the newsletter. There are two articles and one interview that directly focuses on it. You can see this as a significant imbalance, but the plane is worth it. Of course, the others too, whether it's the 48th scale Fw 190 A-5 in the Weekend line or the 72nd scale Bf 109 G-2, the successor to the recently sold-out Limited Edition Wunderschöne neue Maschinen Pt.2. The 1:48th Profipack Spitfire LF.Mk.IXc, one of the most successful kits we've ever released, returns yet again in the form of a reissue, and after a long time, so does our 48th Bf 108, a part of which, the engine, once became the first computer-generated model at the turn of the century used for the production of an injection molded kit.

 As usual, some of the accessory items released are for our own new kits, so there are masks for both the Bf 108 and F-5E, as well as photoetched and Space sets. These include not only sets for current new releases, however, and among the new sets in the Brassin range are several larger items for previously released kits, such as cockpits for the 1:48th Bf 109 G-10 (WNF) and Fw 190 A-8/R2, not to mention the engine for the 72nd scale Bf 109 G-6.

 We also have several collections of sets from our varied lines designed for models released by other manufacturers. For example, we have the popular Gannet from Airfix and another heavy hitter, the F-35B from Tamiya, covered. Among other things, we offer a set of masks for spraying the RAM panels on the surface of the latter. Another set collection is designed for the Hurricane Mk.IIb from Arma and the F4U-1 and 2 Corsair from the new Chinese company Magic Factory. For their aircraft debut, they chose a concept similar to our Dual Combo format, which intrigued me. It is said that the phrase ‘the greatest form of flattery is imitation’ applies to the Chinese, so we should be pleased with their approach, right? We also have a new printed cockpit for the F-16C Block 30 1:48 from Kinetic, and a whole range of larger and smaller sets in all of our accessory lines.

P-51B Mustang 1:48

 Currently, we are finishing up two 1:48th scale P-51B Mustang kits that are officially new items slated for May. As of today, we are missing two sprues that we expect will be completed and successfully fine-tuned around mid-March. We will release the new Mustang in two editions. The first will be a Limited Edition kit called Overlord: D-Day Mustangs. The kit will be released in a Dual Combo format, with two sets of sprues, masks and photoetched, and will be dedicated to the P-51B and Mk.III Mustangs participating in the Allied landings in Normandy in June, 1944. The kit can be built with both the standard side opening canopy version (birdcage) or with a modified version known as the Malcolm Hood. There will be a total of ten decal options, including one British Mustang Mk.III.

 The second kit will be directly derived from the Limited Edition kit ‘Overlord: D-Day Mustangs’. It will be the P-P51B Mustang Royal Class release. The basis will be the same as for the aforementioned kit. Two sets of plastic, two of photoetched and two of masks will be a part of its contents. The basic decal sheet and scheme options will also be the same. But there will be some significant differences. There will be one more decal sheet with four more options: Dominic S. Gentile's ‘Shangri-La’, Duane W. Beeson's ‘Boise Bee’, both from the 4th Fighter Group, along with Robert Eckfeldt's ‘Bald Eagle’ and ‘Lou III’, flown by Thomas Christian of the 361st Fighter Group. In addition to this, the kit will also include a selection of Brassin accessories, which will be two versions of the 3D printed seat with integrated seat belts, two sets of exhausts and two sets of wheels. The kit will also include a Space line badge with the USAAF 8th Air Force insignia, a magnet and a painting, with the same motif used in the box art for the Overlord: D-Day Mustangs kit. The author of the painting will be Piotr Forkazsewicz. The boxing will be a classic Royal Class package in the same style as the previous Royal Class P-51D Mustang in 1:48th.

 There will be a pre-order event for both. Each of them will have a slightly different sales format that will be followed. The Overlord: D-Day Mustangs will have a 15% discount applied to the basic pre-order price, which will apply to anything a customer orders concurrently with this item. All P-51B and Overtree additionals slated for release in May will also be on offer with the pre-order. The Overlord: D-Day Mustangs kit will then go on regular sale in May and will be available across our retail network.

Profiles of the two P-51Bs whose illustrations will be featured on the cover of the premiere limited edition of the P-51B "Overlord: D-Day Mustangs.

 The Royal Class offer will follow a different template. It will be sold only at the base price without a discount on its own, but will act as a discount trigger for other items purchased with it. So if you pre-order the Royal Class kit along with other items, you'll get a pre-order discount on those other items, but not on the Royal Class kit. Of note is the fact that the Royal Class boxing will only be available for pre-order either from us or from our selected partners who will be participating in this event. We will only produce as many kits as are pre-ordered, no more.

 The pre-order window opens on March 8th for eleven days, closing on Monday, March 18th. We will continuously inform you about the event and its conditions, as well as kit content descriptions and progress towards availability on our social media networks and also by mailings before the start of the pre-order event.

P-51D Mustang 1:72

 We will be launching a corresponding pre-order event for the 72nd scale P-51D Mustang at the end of March. It too will be in two formats, as a standard Limited Edition kit called ‘Men O'War’, and as a Royal Class ‘P-51D Mustang 1:72’. Both kits will be Dual Combo type and the markings will be based on the 1:48th Royal Class P-51D package we released five years ago. The 72nd Royall Class item will again have several bonus features in the form of Brassin sets, a picture, a badge and a package-specific decal sheet offering further scheme options. Pre-order conditions will be the same as for both P-51B 1:48 kits. Pre-order of the 1:72nd scale P-51D will start on March 29th and end on April 8th.

B-17F Flying Fortress 1:48

 Although the 1:48th scale Flying Fortress isn't due for release until August, we're aiming to bring it to Madison, Wisconsin for the IPMS USA Nats taking place in mid-July. Nevertheless, it is time to write something about this project now, because the first mentions caused quite a stir and brought forth many questions. So today I offer you at least the basic facts about this project:

- The project is being developed under the working name ‘Bloody Hundreth 1943’ and is being developed around the B-17F in 48th.

- The following release will carry the name ‘Bloody Hundreth 1944’ and will be based around the B-17G in 48th.

- The first of these two is expected to be released in August 2024.

- The projects are being developed in cooperation with Hong Kong Models (HKM) and the 100th Bomb Group Foundation (100th BGF)

- The plastic will be supplied by HKM

- Because the HKM kit has only one of many possible variations of the nose (the oldest, suach as the one that was on the Memphis Belle), we have designed other versions so that we could include later configurations.

- The molds for the noses will be made by HKM based on our designs. HKM will produce and supply the finished product.

- We are working closely with the 100th BGF regarding historical data as well as licensing of trademarks held by 100th BGF. The 100th BG is one of the few, if not the only, US joint military aviation unit whose tactical insignia, the D within a square, and other related items are subjects of a registered trademark.

- An important role in the project is being played by our colleague Jan Zdiarský, who is the link between Eduard and the 100th BGF. In addition to being an employee of Eduard, he is also a member of the 100th BGF. Mr. Zdiarský, who, among other things, functions as the chief editor of our newsletters. He is also the curator of the oft mentioned museum dedicated to the air battle over the Ore Mountains on September 11th, 1944, and has prepared materials for the development of the noses and gathered reference materials for the creation of the decals and color schemes, and will put together summaries for those color schemes as well as articles related to this project that will appear in our forthcoming newsletters.

The Air Battle of the Ore Mountains museum, as mentioned, is devoted to the events of September 11, 1944, when during the mission to Ruhland, the 100th BG lost thirteen B-17Gs, mainly over the town of Kovářská and its surroundings.

B-17 Flying Fortress Accessory Items

 Also associated with the B-17, and the Bloody Hundred, is the Masters of the Air series currently running on Apple TV+. Due to the series, and I'm pretty sure it is due to the series, we've had a significant increase in requests to re-release out of production accessory items for the B-17 of various kit manufacturers and scales. We have decided to comply with them and put these sets back in our range. You might be surprised that there are more than 160 such items! They have been on sale since last week and you can find them in our e-shop.

Articles

 As I mentioned earlier, three articles today are dedicated to the F-5E Tiger II. Included is the article ‘Freedom Tiger’, a brief summary of the development and history of the Northrop F-5 by Richard Plos, the article about Kbely’s F-5 describing the F-5E in the collection of the Aviation Museum in Prague-Kbely by its curator Miroslav Khol, and an interview with the restorer of this exhibit by Mr. Petr Ježek, which was conducted and written up by me.

 Boxart Stories are a matter of course in our newsletters. Jan Zdiarský's Boxart Story, which is linked to the Spitfire LF Mk.IXc kit, takes you to Normandy in the summer of 1944. Honza Bobek prepared three Boxart Stories: the one covering the Fw 190A-5 is dedicated to the type’s fight against four-engine bombers in the summer of 1943. Details of one of the last battles undertaken by JG 54 commander Hannes Trautloft are described in the Bf 109 G-2 article, and the Boxart Story for the Bf 108 describes how Theo Blaich's desert-camouflaged aircraft is related to the film ‘The English Patient’.

 In addition to these, this month’s newsletter brings you a report from Tiger Meet 2023 by Jaroslav Špaček, an article about the work surrounding 3D printing by Jakub Nademlejnský and, of course, another installment of the air war over Ukraine by Mir Barič.

 The last mentioned is already very long, much longer than we would all like. Needless to say, we have entered the 24th month of this barbaric Russian war. We've read a lot in recent weeks about how tiring this thing has become, about Russia's overwhelming superiority, the West's weakness and incompetence, and Russia's resilience. Regardless of who actually originates this information and who floods our free media space with it, I want to say screw all that crap! We're all sick of the damn war. It cost us all, it cost us money especially in the West, and believe me, it cost us a lot of money at Eduard, because the drop in sales that came immediately after the Russian attack in February 2022 and continues to this day clearly correlates closely to this war. But this war is costing Ukraine thousands of human lives and causing immeasurably greater material and moral losses. The only way out is to defeat Russia, drive it out of Ukraine, and prevent it from any further aggression. It will still cost us a lot of effort, blood and money, but we must not give up, otherwise we and our elected politicians will pay dearly for our capitulation and failure. The world may change, but basic rules do not. And the most important of the basic rules is that there is a heavy price for weakness and failure.

Other News

 So that the newsletter intro doesn’t take on too much of a doom and gloom feel, I do have a few bit of good news to share.

 We bought a new injection molding machine. Upgrading never hurts, and buying new equipment is at least as useful as buying new tanks in these tumultuous times. The new old Leopards that the ACR (Army of the Czech Republic) received are a good example and should also be put to good use!

 We received a shipment of Gunze products, and this week's restock is going on sale. In the meantime, however, all other stocks of this range have dropped, so we are sending another order into the GSi dispatch center in Germany. But we have no clue as to when it will arrive.

Markings of two Spitfires Mk.V by Polish pilots that will be part of a special very limited edition offered at the show Bytom, Poland, 16-17 March 2024.

 Another bit of good news is that we will be at several shows in March. Next weekend we are in Verona, Italy and the weekend after, we will be in Bytom, Poland. The very next week, March 23, we are at the Panthers Cup in Prague at the Prosek show, where Fredy Riedl from Special Hobby and I will have a Q & A session, so I cordially invite you to a friendly chat. Finally on Easter we will be in Prostějov for the Easter Prostějov Show. At the very least we should have pre-production 48th scale Mustangs at Prosek and Prostějov to show off. If we succeed and everything turns out as it should, then we will produce a pre-premiere edition, like a semi-Weekend in a white box with only instructions and a small label. If you decide that this item might be for you, don't hesitate, this little thing will have its value and another of those basic rules of life and the universe is: he who hesitates, loses!

 The 1:48th scale Mirage IIIC is back in the  Profipack range under the catalog number 8103. We have packaged the last 530 pieces. The rule from the previous paragraph also applies here!

 And finally, the news of the day. As of tomorrow, March 5th, I will be answering questions from modelers in the Ask Eduard thread on Hyperscale. You can ask me anything you want there, and I will answer what I want! Sounds fair. Should be good…

Happy Modelling!

 Vladimir Sulc