EDITORIAL

Dear Friends,

After our participation in the show at Lingen,

our May release centerpiece, the 1:72 scale

Avia S-199, was shown off at Prostějov over

Easter. After that, last weekend we were

pleased to be at Moson again, in Hungary.

It was refreshing to be able to do so after two

years of isolation and home office, and to be

able to catch up with so many friends, colleagues and customers in one location. It felt

like a return to the good ol’ days of pre-Covid.

But it’s not quite like that. The good ol’ days

ended with the epidemic, inflation and war,

and won’t be back. A new world is emerging.

The Russian war against Ukraine and the

free world is into its third month, and I am

pleased that our nation is on the right side.

We are supplying weapons. We may not be

providing as many weapons as larger countries can, or as modern as larger countries

can, if they were willing, but we are providing them quickly and without a lot of talking.

When I was in the army, I was with a howitzer

unit, and it pleases me that the Ukrainians

are receiving Czech self-propelled howitzers

and salvo rocket launchers. It appeared as

though these pieces were destined to end up

rotting in some storage depot or in museums, but now we are hoping that they serve

well in Ukraine and help push back the Russian occupiers. Being on the right side isn’t a

sure thing here. This wasn’t always the case,

but just like today, we stood on the right side

eighty years ago. Our field guns and infantry

protected North African Tobruk against the

Germans and Italians, our pilots flew in the

ranks of the RAF over Western Europe and

the 1st Czechoslovak Infantry Battalion was

formed in Buzuluk, preparing for its Baptism

of Fire against the Wehrmacht at Sokolov.

Back home, in a country under Nazi occupation, there was resistance. On May 22, 1942,

our British based agents who parachuted

into the homeland and with the support of

the local resistance, assassinated the head

of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

SS Obergruppenführer and Chief of Police

Reinhard Heydrich. He succumbed to his injuries that resulted in the attack and as such,

became the highest ranking Nazi official to

be assassinated during the Second World

War by anti-Nazi forces. The Czech nation

paid a massive price for this honorable act

of defiance, the reprisal for which included

the outright murder of thousands of innocents, the climax of which was the elimination of the towns of Lidice and Ležáky from the

face of the earth. The democratic, pro-West

resistance was targeted so effectively after

that, that there were not enough effective

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INFO Eduard

resources available after the war to deter

the newly evolving threat of another dictatorship, this time from the communists, and

it ruled Czechoslovakia for forty long years.

Halfway through that reign, we thought we

could believe in the Russian talk of freedom

and the right to self-government, but their

tanks quickly bailed us out of that mistake.

Our right to belong to the free world was an

expensive one, and so today, we stand firmly

behind Ukraine, because Ukraine is deciding

on the future of our free world.

The MULE

By 1948, we were still precariously on the right side, although the communists had just

come to power. Czechoslovakia nevertheless supported the newly independent state

of Israel in the first Arab-Israeli war. How

the history of this war mimics the current

situation in Ukraine! Supplies sent to Israel

back then included aircraft, namely Spitfires

Mk.IXe and Avia S-199s. The Avia S-199 is being introduced in today’s issue of the newsletter, despite being premiered in the second

half of April in Prostějov and Moson. And

it should be added that it was a successful

premiere, indeed. The kit has been well received, and that pleases me, because to be

honest, neither we, nor anyone else, is capable of doing anything substantially better.

Of course, they wouldn’t be modellers if

they didn’t point out some flaws. As soon as

Moson, we were notified of some things that

were missing, keeping our S-199 from perfection, and what it was we need to work on

to get there. We decline, respectfully. We don’t

produce models as much as we produce kits,

and a kit is still something in need of completion. The model, from the kit, is made by

the modeller, and if there is an item that the

modeler deems as missing, he or she needs

to add said items. As Mr. Zatloukal, the head

of then Kovozávody Prostějov company and

one of the fathers of Czechoslovak plastic

modelling, put it: “A skillful modeller creates

by himself”. This rule applied then, applies

now, and will continue to apply in the future.

Those that are not fully satisfied with a kit, be

a modeller and take it to that level of completion you want. In some cases, we can aid you

in this endeavor with photoetched, resin or

other accessory items, but your involvement

is also necessary.

MODEL KITS

The S-199 entitled MEZEK, or “Mule” in English, comes on the market as a Limited Edition Dual Combo kit with two complete sets

of plastic. These sets are not identical. One

is for an aircraft with the Erla cockpit canopy, and the other for the later series sliding

bubble canopy. There are twelve marking

options, mostly covering Czechoslovak machines of both Military as well as Police Air

Force, three marking options cover Israeli

aircraft from 1948 as the basis of the Israeli Air Force. After the Limited Edition kit, the

ProfiPacks will follow, the first of which will

appear in June with the two-seat CS-199.

The 48th scale S-199 will in all likelihood see

the light of day after the New Year, instead

of before it as originally planned. I initially

promised this kit for E-day, but I doubt that

will happen. Yeah, yeah… The wolf made promises, too!

Along with the S-199, we are releasing a 48th

scale Z-126 Trenér for May in the ProfiPack

line, plus two Weekend kits, the 1:72 scale Spitfire F Mk.IX and 1:48 scale Bf 109G-10

WNF/Diana. Three 48th scale ProfiPacks are

also making a welcome return to the market as re-editions: the quickly sold-out A6M2

Zero Model 21, the Spitfire HF Mk.VIII and the

F6F-3 Hellcat. The last mentioned is not a

straight re-edition, but in this case includes

a modification to the marking options and the

boxart. I don’t see this as much of an issue,

though.

May 2022