very important. Here, too, we will fall

back on our experience from 2019, we

will again consult co-operating clubs,

and the lineup will be complemented

with other modeling personalities. Most

importantly, we will try to assemble the

committees of the various categories in

such a way as to avoid as much of the

political infighting amongst individual

modelers and clubs as possible. I know

that all of this sounds a bit complicated, I rather suspect that we all know

to what I am referring to. In short, what

we would like to achieve is a show that

is fair and in the right spirit of the event.

Awards and Results

The main awards will be in the form

of glass trophies, and there will be six.

Five will be for sub-categories…aircraft,

armor, ships, civil and figures, while the

sixth will be for the overall ‘best of’. Winning and placing entries in individual

categories, such as 1:72nd scale aircraft,

will receive smaller awards. What form

these will take, I cannot say right now.

But it will not look like an afterthought.

Don’t worry about that. The awards announcements will in all likelihood take

place in Hall A, if only because the podium is already there. We’d also like to

inject a little something in this process

as well, that will take it away from the

‘here’s your award, now get lost’ feel.

Anti-Pandemic Measures

Anti pandemic measures are, naturally,

the biggest and most important factor in all this, because we don’t know

what conditions will persist or arise in

the fall. Currently, the prevailing feel is

one of cautious optimism with a slow

easing of restrictions, and most are

expecting that the fall will see a return

to the conditions that prevailed in the

spring. Although there is a certain level

of skepticism among modellers, I feel

that there won’t be a return to those

conditions, and that society as a whole

has taken the lessons of the past and is

fully aware of its potential return, and is

acting accordingly. As the saying goes,

Generals prepare extremely well for

the previous war. But the new war is always different, and as far as I am concerned, it will not be without covid-19. If

it does make a return in the fall, it will

be in some modified form, and the restrictions to contain it may well be different in the fall than they were in the

spring.

We don’t anticipate the worst case scenario, which would involve the shutting

down of such events and the cancellation of E-day. We do have a contingency

INFO Eduard - July 2021

plan in place that assumes the possibility of a limit on the number of people

allowed to attend such an event. Actually, we think that the number of people allowed will rise as we approach

our dates, and that any limits will be

satisfied by a typical attendance of between 3,500 and 4,000 people. For now,

we are not concerned with any mask or

respirator requirements, because it’s

basically a small detail. Social distancing requirements should be made possible by the addition of the second hall.

Of course, there may some problems

with localized concentrations of people.

This could be a problem where there is

a self-serve type of vendors’ table,

which our table and Special Hobby’s

too, are. Those of you who have been

at an E-day and have visited our table

will know. I am not confident that this

year will be any different, and I do hope

that sales that will be in place on Friday

afternoon and evening will help to alleviate this situation.

We are working with other contingencies, too, in an effort to be as prepared

as possible for any potential restrictions. As one example, and perhaps

the most relevant, at least to my mind,

is the possibility of such events being

open only for ‘related participants’ as

opposed to the general public….ie, modelers. In that case, we would publicize

the event through industry circles, we

would have a limited number of tickets

available, and these would be sold solely on pre-order. The pre-order of tickets

and pre-registration for contest participants is on the table also for the possibility of some 1500 limit, which would

make it pretty easy to avoid any people

concentration issues.

99 New Items for July

Yes, you read right. It’s no typo, and we

really do have 99 new items which are

being shown for the first time in this

newsletter. It’s not the first time we’ve

hit this number, and we’ve even had

a hundred and more new items, but it’s

just nice to say….’99 new items’. Who

else do you know can claim that they

have 99 new items in a month. And

have no fear, I won’t go into any detail

about each and every one of them, but I

will just touch up on the highlights and

you can glean the rest throughout this

newsletter.

Kits and Re-Editions

There are even a lot of kits. If we include

re-editions, there are seven kits being

released. Considering that currently,

re-editions are items that are con-

stantly being tweaked, instructions are

improved, different marking options

are included and boxart is ever evolving, then these can in most respects,

be considered among new items. For

us, these re-editions are a necessity, and they are one of three roads by

which older kits are kept in the rotation. In this case, it’s manifested in

innovation of the look of the kit, and

they are otherwise finished items. That

means that they are relatively low on

the scale of labor intensity. If you take

a closer look at how we do things, you

will note that typically within a month

(either before or after) the release of

a re-edition, we release a similar kit,

usually in the form of a Weekend Edition item. As an example, today the re-edition is that of the Spitfire LF Mk.IXc

in the ProfiPACK line, and next month,

this will be followed by the Weekend

Edition of the Spitfire F Mk.IX. This is

a version that has also been called

Spitfire Mk.IX Early, and I recommend

a good look at the Weekend kit because

it has some very noteworthy marking

options to offer. In September, we will

see another re-edition, this time of the

ProfiPACK Spitfire Mk.VIII, and when

I add that in August, we will also have

the new Mk Vs in American service as

the Limited Edition Eagle’s Call, then

I can only look forward to the assertions that all we do is Spitfires and nothing else. It’s a similar story with the

MiG-21s in 1:48th. This month, we have

the new Weekend kit of the MiG-21bis,

to be followed by the MiG-21MF in the

ProfiPACK line, and then a new Weekend MiG-21MF in September.

Besides the 48th scale ProfiPACK Spitfire Mk.IXc, we have dusted off the Bf

109F-4, also in the ProfiPACK family.

This is another nice Eduard morsel

with nice markings that really needs

no tweaking at all. The six options centre around Hans-Joachim Marseille,

with schemes that go from the desert

to the classic to winter type. It’s a sight

to behold. With the second re-edition,

the aforementioned Spitfire Mk.IXc, it is

similar, although someone at the time

was bellyaching over the options not

being striking enough, because they

were all grey-green. But that’s how it,

more or less, was with Spitfires. There

were also complaints, likely from England, that the marking options were

composed of a band of foreigners…no

Brits. Which was true….we had a Pole, a

Czech and a Canadian , which left only

a silver bird of No.601 Squadron, the

pilot of which is unknown. But I would

stake anything that an Englishman

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