Page 4
Good day, Ladies and Gentlemen!
With July and the start of the latter half of the
year, we can proudly say that we have achieved
our set goals. What we planned for the first half
of the year, we put into production and made
available. During the last two weeks of June,
we shipped all the preordered P-51D Mustang
Royal Class kits. With this item, we have
inaugurated the 72nd series of Mustang kits.
It will largely copy the 48th scale line of
Mustangs, but it won't be strictly a downsized
version. The Limited Edition version ‘Aces of
the Eighth’ is slated and on time for August,
which carries over some specific aircraft from
the various 48th P-51 releases, but also offers
new options that have not been components
previously. Of course, this will also have
a bearing on the color profiles in future 72nd
scale Profipack and Weekend items.
We launched the Mustangs, both the new
P-51D 1:72nd and the P-51B in 1:48th released
in May, last Saturday, June 29th, at the airport
in Líne in the company of a live Mustang, the
P-51D ‘Little Rebel’, which in the Line hangar
was recently replaced by a Spitfire Mk.IX. Those
who were in Líne on Saturday will certainly not
regret it, we enjoyed a pleasant and relaxing
aviation themed morning and learned a lot
about the Mustang and other aircraft. And those
who weren't in Líne can take a look at the photo
report in this issue of our current newsletter
below. It was already the third such event that
we organized in cooperation with the Classic
Trainers Association, and I'm sure it wasn't the
last.
We also launched the preorder of the 48th
B-17F, ‘The Bloody Hundred 1943’ Limited Edition
kit in June. This is actually a new item for August,
currently sold out here. However, this does not
mean that this kit will not be available. A large
part of the shipment was bought by retailers
who will continue to sell this kit for some time.
But as an item offered through our e-shop, this
piece is gone. As of today, we are missing the
core item to box all of our B-17Fs, that being the
plastic. The bulk of these, some 4,800 complete
sets, are traveling by train and are already in
Poland. We have the rest of the components that
make up the kit, and once the plastic arrives,
we will package the kits and send them out
to those that preordered around July 15th.
In the second half of July, we will ship the B-17s
together with August new releases to retailers.
The delivered by air portion of the plastic, some
three hundred sets, is already in our warehouse
as of the end of last week. We will also pack
these up this week and send them to the States.
‘The Bloody Hundredth 1943’ will then go on sale
for the first time at the IPMS Nationals 2024 in
Madison, Wisconsin, July 17-20, along with other
August items.
The most common question when launching
a new kit is ‘what's next?. What other versions
are you going to release?’ There are also cases
where someone in the middle of a Mustang
discussion asks when we will release the
MiG-21F, but it is, of course, perfectly legitimate
to ask about other versions of the Mustang
along with other types of aircraft. Then,
sometime around the third or fourth incarnation
of a specific theme, another type of debater
appears, who will start ranting about another
uninteresting and completely unnecessary
Messerschmitt or Spitfire and demand, in the
stream of a perceived boredom, the release
of something ‘interesting’, such as a KB-3
Chuchuliga, or at least a Shorts Tucano. I have to
disappoint these folks, they will have to accept
that we are a mainstream company and they
will have to look for such types from someone
else. There are many manufacturers of high-
quality construction kits on the market today,
so they will surely see not only the Tucano,
which is already on the market, but also the
legendary Chuchuliga. As for our next step with
the Mustang, the P-51B in 1:48th, we will release
the first Profipack of the P-51B with the original
canopy, and then, also as a Profipack, the filleted
P-51B/C at E-day. There, things get a little tricky
with marking options, since there is no clear
division between filleted and nonfilleted P-51Bs
and Cs. Both had or did not have the fillet. In the
end, it's the same for canopies, so the labeling
of specific boxings for B-type Mustangs will
probably be a bit of a pain in the ass. The last of
the Profipacks, the B version with the Malcolm
hood, will be released in the middle of next
year, and then we will deal with the Weekends
and possibly other Limited Edition releases.
It will be similar for the 72nd scale Ds, the first
Limited Edition kit, ‘Aces of the Eighth’, is also
scheduled to be released in August, followed
by a Profipack P-51D-5 in November and a D-10
in January of next year. Further little Ds will
gradually be released through more Limited
Edition kits and will basically mirror the 48th
scale versions.
EDITORIAL
INFO Eduard4
July 2024