EDITORIAL

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The winter wave of covid is subsiding

a bit with the coming of spring, but we

are still testing our workers on a regular basis, even though it’s been over

a month since we have had a positive case,

and we have no one ill at the moment.

At least, not due to covid. The restock of

our catalog is progressing slowly, but it is

continuing. We are up to the Tempest kits,

which could see stocked shelves through

May, and in June, there should be a reissue

of the Tempest Mk.V Series I kit. The MiG-21s in 1:48th are beginning their production

run, and May should also see the initiation

of the Spitfire Mk.IXs, along with their associated versions, the Mk.VIII and Mk.XVI.

In June, we may be able to focus some

attention on the Hellcats, and on the Fw 190D

through the summer months. By then, we’ll

be into some of the 1:72nd scale items as

well. Production of new molds is going well,

too, and the Camel moulds are essentially complete. The Trener moulds have their

electrodes, and parts are being milled into

the blocks now. We are putting together the

manuscript for the video advert for the Trener kits, which I am getting a kick out of, and

I trust you will enjoy the end result. But the

filming itself requires a fairly large number

of Treners, and by that, I mean the genuine articles, not models. We make the latter

ourselves, no worries. We are confident that

we will be able to present the Trener kit at

this year’s E-day as a new release, and the

question isn’t whether or not this will be possible. The bigger question is whether or not

this dumb pandemic can be beaten, and if it

will bring about the return of the modeling

events that we are familiar with as being

normal. I personally believe that the answer

is yes, and that we will be able to meet at

Lysa nad Labem, and that it will be the first

E-day to be put on in accordance with the

vision based on the new format inclusive

of the Czech Model Masters contest. I also

believe that we will be at Las Vegas for the

4 eduard

IPMS Nationals in the United States and at

Telford in November.

KITS

May is unique in that we have no new Limited

Edition kit for release in this month. We were

to have put out the 1:72nd scale Adlerangriff

kit with different Special Hobby Bf 109Es. But,

as is clear, it is not part of May’s release program. The problem is rooted in the underestimation by Special Hobby of the demand for

the kit, and the first two press cycles of the

kit did not yield enough plastic to cover orders. So we left our order for these kits to SH

for their needs, and we pushed the release

date of ours to July. But that July order is

OURS! We won’t be leaving that one to them.

Conversely, we moved the release of the

1:48th scale Fw 190F-8 from July to May, and

it’s the ProfiPACK version. The Focke Wulf

is bound to make a lot of people happy, but

I get that it does nothing for the 1:72nd types

among you. The Fw 190F-8 stems from the

Fw 190A-8, but has a new wing and two sprues of weapons for attacking ground targets.

The sprues with the weapons are the same as

those that appeared in the first generation of

the Fw 190F-8 that we released some years

back. There are seven markings options in

the kit, and they intentionally cover the majority of the spectrum of Luftwaffe units that

flew the type. The theme of the ground attack

Fw 190F-8s is further taken up in this

newsletter via an article by Andrew Arthy.

In the past several months, there was quite

a bit of interest in the Panzerschreck weapons, which were carried by the Fw 190F8. The question has also been raised as to

whether we would release these as Brassin

items, and the answer to that question is

‘yes’. But I must point out that this somewhat

iconic piece of equipment suffers from a lack

of good reference material. So, we ask the

harsher critics out there to be a little bit forgiving. We are doing what we can.

Another May ProfiPACK is the Mustang Mk.IV,

the British version of the P-51D, as well as

the P-51K, which was known in the RAF as

the Mustang Mk.IVa. In the ProfiPACK kit, the

Mk.IVa outnumbers the Mk.IV in a ratio of 2:1,

with there being a total of four K’s. I always tended to view the British versions of the

Mustang as somewhat boring, but, of course, in researching the marking options, I, as

many before me, have done an about face.

You will probably come to the same conclusion yourselves. The options are quite outstanding, as are the individual stories connected

with them. The boxart again depicts an actual event. In this case, it concerns Operation

Omelette, an operation that focused on the liberation of the Channel Islands, the only part

of the United Kingdom to be occupied by Nazi

Germany. You can read more on this operation in the accompanying article by Richard

Plos in this newsletter. To go along with the

Mustang Mk.IV, we will also be releasing

a BFC item, dedicated to one of the most depicted of the British Mustangs, flown by F/Lt.

A.S. Doley, named ‘Dooleybird’.

And that’s not all for the ProfiPACK releases this month. The other is the Bf 109G2. Actually, this one is a sort of a ‘re-issue’

and is largely the same as the Bf 109G-2

ProfiPACK kit carrying the Catalog Number 82116. It has a new boxart, because the

original one was…how to put it?....nothing to

write home about. It also differs in one of

the marking options provided, because the

one that it replaces required the inclusion

of the plastic sprue containing a G-4 wing.

At the moment, plastic parts are at a premium for us, and so we really need to go

out of our way to use them to optimal effect,

accounting for the change in the marking options, taking advantage of the elimination of

the need for that sprue. The last of the four

May ProfiPACK releases is a clean reissue.

It is the MiG-21MF Fighter Bomber in 1:72nd

scale. The boxart depicts Vietnamese fighter ace and future cosmonaut Pham Tuan

downing a B-52. Back in the day, this picture caused a lot of commotion from across

the pond and I am hopeful that we won’t see

a repeat of that this time around. The last

of the five May mode kit releases is the Albatros D.V in a 1:72nd scale Weekend Edition boxing. This kit’s a classic for which we

have chosen four attractive marking options,

which has now become the norm for this line.

INFO Eduard - May 2021