Editorial

Good day, Dear Friends,

 Welcome to September's Newsletter. Having Jakub write about what we did in the States in August in the Tail End Charlie portion of this issue and me about how America is standing the world on its ear with all those wonderful customs, duties and tariffs, frees me up to point out some good, solid reasons why you should consider attending this year’s E-day event.

This year's E-day is being held in Litomerice for the first time. Litomerice has a lot to offer a visitor on its own merit. It is a beautiful city, one of the oldest in Bohemia, perhaps the oldest Czech city. The seat of the archbishop is located there, along with many monuments, palaces, churches, a beautiful square, pubs, taverns, bars and cafes. And cafes are important if you want to have a good chat with friends, priceless in fact, especially if they also make good coffee and something good to eat. There are at least two of them in Litomerice. If that seems like a lot to you, believe me, it is not. Many cities can be happy to have one good cafe, and some don't even have that. This means that you can spend your free time well in this town, which is, by the way, a good reason to extend E-day into Sunday again and maybe bring back the two day format for the event. This year it will not be like that, this year we end on Saturday evening, but I personally will probably lobby hard for a two-day E-day. You can join me and make yourself be heard if you like what we do in Litomerice.

Even though E-day ends on Saturday, there is still a reason to extend the trip into Sunday and explore the surroundings, which are as breathtaking as the city itself. There are castles and palaces all around, the region is dominated by the two towers of Hazmburk, which has a beautiful view from nearby Kostalov, and the hidden remains of Kostomlaty Castle under Milesovka Mountain are breathtaking. Milesovka is also worth the hike, as is Lovos, even though there are no castles there. One castle is hidden in the Oparenske Valley, which is worth a walk, and not far from Litomerice, rises the mighty Kalich hill with the remains of the unique castle of perhaps the most famous Czech military leader, Jan Zizka of Trocnov, who, after settling in Kalich to the displeasure of the townspeople of Litomerice, referred to himself as Jan Zizka of Kalich. But we also have other famous military leaders in Bohemia, one of them, General Laudon, who fought in the vicinity of Litomerice during the Seven Years' War and lived at the castle in Budyne nad Ohri and defeated the Prussians a short distance from today’s Highway D8 exit to Most. At that time, a certain Baron Trenck also fought with him there, and his mummified remains were laid to rest in a crypt of the Capuchin Monastery in Brno and they named a beer after him. There are more battlefields from Czech history around Litomerice, but the castles, which are absolutely stunning structures, are not to be forgotten. There is the aforementioned castle in Budyne nad Ohri, Libochovice, and Ploskovice is another breathtaking site, where there is also a good café and lots of peacocks on the castle grounds, but you have to watch out for these little pricks, as they like to steal and peck at passing cars. A little further away is the town of Ustek, where there is also good food and good coffee, and on the other side towards Prague is Terezin, an infamous Jewish ghetto during World War II and a prison camp run by the Prague Gestapo in the Small Fortress, but it is also a gem of Baroque architecture and in my opinion, a walk along the walls, or even in the walls, is something that a modeler who respects his honor should definitely not miss. Is that enough for you? It certainly is not the complete list of things to see and do in the area. You can take it to the bank that Litomerice has much to offer, and once you visit, you will want to come back again and again, and we’ll have good reason to keep E-day here.

So let's get to the show’s program. We'll start on Friday in the early evening with a presentation of news outlining our plans and a discussion. I don't know yet who this discussion will be with, there are more candidates and I can choose only one of them. On Saturday, we'll continue more or less traditionally, starting with a discussion with MiG-21F pilots, moderated by Honza Zika. Then there will be the traditional ‘Pot’ Q & A, one with Fredy Riedel from Special Hobby, moderated by Zbynek Skopan and Petr Svihovec, and the other will be moderated by Jindra Sterbacek together with Katerina Borecka. Jindra is returning as moderator of the Pot after a break of several years, and he has come up with a new format, which should give this event a new, more modern feel, and he will share the mike with me, and if I should bore you, Jindra will also add bring along his colleague Mr. Muzikant, a former archenemy. He probably expects that this will give the debate more traction and I wish him success. The last discussion will be led by Jarda Hajecek with Katerina Borecka. Jarda will be the moderator, Katerina will be the guest. She is a rising star in our field and our company, and I have a strong suspicion that this discussion will be completely packed. These discussions will take place in the Hall G next to Hall D, where the Eduard stand will be located. If these discussions are not enough for you, or if you find them too ‘formal’, or if you simply feel like a beer or coffee, stop by the Café by the Lake, which is a wooden hut with a pond with fish in it, and there I, Katka Borecka, and Petr Svihovec will take turns and we will have short, informal conversations with interesting people from our company and elsewhere. For example, we will talk with Mr. Bures about his diorama of the Battle of Chlumec. It took place in 1813, the Russians, Austrians and Prussians fought against the French, who they defeated there, captured General Vandamme there and it was a somewhat neglected battle today, given its pan-European implications. It was actually the largest victorious battle fought by our army on Czech territory. At that time, our army was the Austrian army, but you will learn all this and much more at the Café by the Lake when you come there.

If all this wasn't enough of a reason for you to visit E-day and Litomerice, then I'll try to give you another material benefit. In addition to the September and October new releases, which, as you probably suspect, will already be well-known by October 4th, we will also present at least two November new releases at E-day.

The first one will be the MiG-21F-13 Profipack 1:48th. We have all the molds ready, we are producing the plastic, the box, instructions and decals are at the printers and we are also producing other components. The same is true with the F-13 Limited Edition release. We will start packing these kits from the pre-order event next week, we will probably ship them to retailers together with October’s new releases in the second half of September, and to those who pre-ordered during the third week of September. We will put together the Profipacks a week before E-day and I assume that we will take about 500 of them there. Not that I expect them all to be sold, but it is better to have more than be short some. The MiG-21F has the potential to surprise, and we already have a pre-order total of some 1850 units.

The second new release for November at E-day will be the S-199 in 1:48 scale. Those of you who have been to my lectures in Pilsen or Hampton, VA, or who follow modelling forums, already know that it will not be a kit in the traditional sense, but that we will release the ‘Mule’ in the new Eduard Brassin Hybrid series. This is a new series of composite kits, where the airframe, wings, fuselage, tail, and other parts such as the propeller and the cockpit canopy will be classic injection molded plastic, and details such as the entire cockpit, landing gear including struts, will be 3D printed. This solution will bring various advantages for both manufacturers and modelers. These modeler advantages will primarily lie in the high quality of the details, for which the modeler will not have to pay with a disproportionate amount of effort that he would have to put into such a detailed model before now. For example, the landing gear legs, which in a classic kit was glued together from five parts, will be made from one part in the Brassin Hybrid kits and will have details that could not be made from plastic due to injection molding limitations. The same will be true of the cockpit, where there will be the greatest savings in labor. I discussed this series and what we are planning to do next in Hampton and also in Pilsen, and I will also talk about it at the MR in Liberec. And then of course at E-day, where you will be able to see the S-199 and possibly buy it. The new S-199 format and the concept’s merits or its utter nonsense are being discussed on modeling forums as we speak. As with everything new that appears in the Czech Republic, there are many negative opinions, however, by Czech standards, the discussion is taking place in an almost un-Czech optimistic spirit. And at E-day, it will all be broken down and everyone will see what the new product actually is about.

Still not convinced? Let’s talk about food! The road to love goes through the stomach and this year we have probably the most extensive catering services ever provided for E-day, if I don't count the food court in Galeria Butovice. But our catering this year has the potential to beat even that!

There’s one more thing I’d like to mention. Before I started the editorial, I wrote a Boxart Story about the Ki-115 Tsurugi. That is currently the September release in the Heavy Retro line. The problem with Tsurugi is that there is not much to write about the image. I explain why in the article, and in order to have something to write about, I also wrote about the history of the kit and its importance in kit development at Eduard. This is related to the fact that in the last issue of the EMD, published last week, we started publishing a new series called Plastos about the history of plastic model making in Bohemia and the surrounding area. So far, we are at the beginning, somewhere in the eighties, but in two or three installments, Eduard will make its appearance and along with it, this kit, which will be accompanied by a more thorough description of this airplane and what the model has brought us, which we are just touching on today. So if you are interested in what it was like to develop and produce model kits at Eduard and elsewhere, who was involved in it all and how, and what we experienced, then watch the new series Plastos in our EMD magazine. It is an amazing, dramatic, funny, and sometimes a little distressing story that you will definitely enjoy!

So, I hope to see you all at one of our upcoming shows, and I wish you a good read with our newsletter!

Happy Modeling!

Vladimir Sulc