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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.
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
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.
Eduard banner on Hyperscale.
ÚVODNÍK
INFO Eduard6
March 2024