ber to coincide with E-day. Our mistake was

that we were not able to finish the model in

time to make it a part of October’s list of new

kits, which were slated to go out on the 15th of

September. But due to the work of my colleagues, who did everything they could to remedy

the situation, the model can be premiered on

October 2nd in Plzen. Or at least, that is how

things are panning out, but the kit is still not

quite ready and time is running down. If the kit

is still not ready for normal release, we will at

least have the plastic sprues, boxes, and decals

to show off. But, if we have all these individual

components ready, chances are that the kit will

be set to go out the door. But, in any case, if the

Trener kits are not in Plzen, the real thing will

be, and that in itself will be worthwhile.

All of the above are clearly being planned on

the basis of these three kits. The rest of the

October new releases will be saved for October’s newsletter. Details of the air show can

be found elsewhere throughout this newsletter, on the pages of the Eduard e-shop

at www.eduard.cz , on Facebook, Twitter and

so on.

September Limited Edition Releases

There will also be the September releases

to be had at Plzen. One of these is seriously

threatened with being hopelessly sold out by

the time the event comes around, so we are

planning on holding back a carton or two to

have some remnants of stock at our table in

Plzen. This is the Limited Edition kit ‘Angel of

Mercy’ aka the B-25J Mitchell in 1:72nd. At the

moment as I write this, at the end of August,

the situation is not quite so dramatic, but they

can be extrapolated to that end. We’ve already

got some drama behind us, and the plastic has

arrived from Japan with a major delay. You may

recall that we have had to postpone the release

of the kit. The plastic didn’t even arrive in time

for August release, and when they should have

been in the process of being packed, they were

still sitting in customs in Hamburg. It’s just one

example of the state of international shipping

these days, which can be described as depressing. It’s a mess that has not been witnessed

in a long time, if ever, actually. The information

that can be had, and its accuracy, seems to be

a massive, twenty or thirty year step backwards. The important thing now is to understand what Angel of Mercy is. It is the B-25J

with the glass nose that was used by units in

1944-1945 in the Mediterranean and Far East

theatres of operation. There are ten marking

options, five from Europe and five from Asia,

and they are very striking options to boot.

INFO Eduard - September 2021

Current ‘rights activists’ would likely class

them as sexist and vulgar applying current

standards and agendas to wartime conditions

as they like to do. See them for yourselves, and

if you want this kit, don’t delay. This kit will not

be in stock for very long. The decal sheet is, of

course, quite substantial, and is consistent with

the subjects it covers. The decals are ours, and

are of the ‘peeling’ variety, something that after

three years after their introduction has become

a standard norm, but we still get a lot of questions as to whether or not the decals included in

recent releases includes these types. So, yes,

they are. And that includes stencil data sheets,

too. You can also read the article that focuses

on the Mitchell named ‘Angel of Mercy’ and her

crew in this issue of the newsletter.

Despite the fact that this kit is, without a doubt,

a beautiful release, it’s not our ace up the sleeve for the month. This honor falls on the new

Camel, being first released as a Limited Edition

kit named ‘Camel & Co.’. Originally, the kit was

being developed under the name of ‘Biggles &

Co.’, but during development, it was discovered

that the publishers of W.E. Johns’ ‘Ace of Spades’ had registered the name ‘Biggles’, and so

this was our way of circumnavigating potential

conflicts. There is no registered trademark for

our industry or our group of products per se, but

using the name as is didn’t give us a warm or

fuzzy feeling. Biggles is, nevertheless, the central theme of this edition. The first two marking

options are based on the work of W.E. Johns.

They are actually fictitious, but we are not the

ones that made them up. The development of

the appearance of aircraft serialed J1936 come

from researches that have looked into Biggles

aircraft, and J4613 is based on an illustration by

Howard Leight in the short story ‘Caught Napping’. That story is not really about Biggles, so

our connection between the pilot and machine

is likely off. But admit it… our hobby is really

something when we can find a mistake in the

development of fictional markings on an aircraft flown by a hero in a novel. I find this whole

thing quite intriguing, and I hope you will, too.

This is why we chose this non-traditional path,

and inserted Biggles’ aircraft among serious,

historically accurate and documented Camels.

After all, who is the most famous Camel pilot?

There are many candidates, and we all know of

a few. We have Captain Arthur Brown, conqueror of the Red Baron, William Barker, Raymond

Collishaw, Donald R. MacLaren, Henry Woollett,

and many others. None of you is likely to recite the entire list of Camel aces, but there is

one name that is almost certain to be common

to all of them, and that is the name of Captain

James Bigglesworth. Him and his creator,

W.E. Johns, together with Pierre Clostermann,

Ernst Udet, Antione Saint-Exupery and even

Frantisek Fajtl are our childhood heroes. They

were important in leading us down the road to

the magic of plastic modelling. So, who cares

that Biggles is no more than a hero in a story?

He is our hero, and we want his Camel to help

make our modelling world more complete. And

for those of you that want to depict his blue and

yellow Camel, leave the serial number off the

rudder and you have it.

The details concerning the colouring of Biggles’

Camels will be explained further on our Facebook page and maybe will even find its way into

future issues of our newsletter. But not in this

one, because there is already an article and

a short story dedicated to him. That is the aforementioned ‘Ace of Spades’. The other is the

biography of W.E. Johns by Roger Harris. But,

that will not be the end of the Biggles saga for

us. Starting with the October newsletter, we

will be presenting the genesis of books about

Biggles Even that is unlikely to be the end of it

on this theme within the pages of our newsletter. I am often asked why a new Camel? The

reason is that the original galvanized forms

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