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during the week, not only met but exceeded our
expectations. It was an American show in every
sense. Seeing two B-29s fly in formation with
a Lancaster and an F-35 with F-22s, A-10s and
F-16s is an experience in itself, but experiencing
a flight demonstration of F-35s and F-22s by the
USAF display team is something unforgettable!
Of course, there is much, much more to Oshkosh,
from the wonderful EAA museum filled with
unique (and mostly civilian) exhibits to the
aircraft on static display throughout the airport
grounds, not to mention everything that flies in.
If you want to experience for yourself the
meaning of the word beauty in the aviation sense
of the word, come to Oshkosh!
I was reminded of the influence America
had on Eduard's development during our trip
from beginning to end. Over our last night in
America we slept at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in
Rosemont, near Chicago's O'Hare Airport. This is
the hotel to which we went every year for almost
twenty years around the end of September and
beginning of October, when the RICHTA exhibition
was held annually in the adjacent exhibition
and conference center. This was the name of
an American organization that brought together
manufacturers of models and kits of all fields,
from both functional and static model making.
It also brought together many manufacturers,
if memory serves. Eduard was its member. It was
a sort of an American answer to Nuremberg, albeit
on a smaller scale. We used to regularly have
a smaller table there, we promoted new products,
and we met with our distributors. It was important
to us then and worth going there because at the
turn of the millennium we had nine distributors
in America and America's share of our sales was
40%. In the 1990s and early 2000s, manufacturers
such as Monogram, AMT and Esci-ERTL were
very active in the USA, as was Minicraft, which
worked as Academy-Minicraft. There was also
Accurate Miniatures, and Verlinden, which was
a leader in cast resin accessories in the first half
of the 1990s, and relocated there. There were
a number of manufacturers of model railways and
functional models, all of whom were members of
RICHTA, and it was alive at the exhibition.
It was a real American show, and included
great American ice cream, a shoe shiner with
his stand behind the entrance, who was always
busy, because back then people still went to
EDITORIAL
INFO Eduard
5
August 2024