EDITORIAL

In the nearly twenty years of the E-day event,

its associated events went off without a hitch. It

rained only a couple of times, and not all that

much at that. This year, that’s all changed, and

when I say ‘all’, I mean ALL. We have a pandemic

that hasn’t been seen in over a generation, and

even the weather’s not acting according to predictions. According to the predictions, we were

to be subjected to catastrophic drought conditions. Now, this situation changes on an almost

daily basis, and we’ve had our share of dry spells

and wet conditions too. The latter came about

on the planned date of E-day, on Saturday, September 26th, and it rained cats and dogs. And

when we planned out the third compensation

event, the flight of the Cmelak at the air field in

Jicin, it rained the most.

All three events, designed to compensate for

the cancellation of E-day, were held as small

scale affairs, accommodating a maximum of

one hundred people. This looked like it would

just fit through the tightening noose of anti-pandemic countermeasures. Things still looked

OK for the first of our events, the round table

Q and A session, despite the new minister of

health slapping restrictions on such events that

limited the number of attendees. There were

enough seats available, and there weren’t all

that many who attended. However, I found out

that it’s hard for me to conduct a lecture sitting

down. So, I ended up being the only one standing. Saturday’s Spitfire Day couldn’t have been

much better, and it was focused on modellers

and their wishes and needs. It was a calm affair,

and simply took as much time as it needed. It

was very pleasant. There were comments that it

was better than any air show, and I fully agree

with the notion. This was, without a shadow of a

doubt, because it was an intimate, comfortable

and friendly affair. It didn’t really end as such. It

just sort of wound down naturally, people left on

a really good note, our host polished up his Spitfire, and we went home. The drama began the

following week, because guests were required

to keep to their seats, and the weather forecast

began to look distressing. We had enough seats

to go around, and you can pretty much always

take the weather forecast with a grain of salt. But

not this time. It pissed down, and didn’t let up.

We had a wet day backup plan which we put into

motion. The planned flying display took place,

which I doubted would ever happen, but I would

say that it went off in such a way that if Ernst

Udet was looking down on it, he himself must

have been very pleased with it.

As planned, we christened kits on Spitfire Day.

These were Spitfire Story: The Few and the Spitfire ProfiPACK kit with champagne and the Flight

of the Cmelak (which translates to ‘Bumble Bee’)

with a bottle of mead. The christened boxes then

were taken for a ride, with the Spitfire kits being

carried in the ammunition bays and in the radio

compartment of the Spitfire, while the Cmelak

appropriately flew in the Cmelak. Several of

these will be available for purchase in an auction

that we hope to hold as part of our pre-Christmas events.

Saturday, September 26th, also saw the taking place of our National Plastic Model Cham4

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pionships. This event has been associated with

E-day for some fifteen years now, and this year

returned to its roots as a chamber event at the

Olympik Hotel in Prague. The overall winner was

Robert Szwarc with a 48th scale Tempest. Our

congratulations go to him, and our thanks go out

to the organizers.

When we cancelled the E-day event at the end

of August, we had serious reservations about

doing so. Unfortunately, the rather dark predictions are being fulfilled, and the above mentioned events designed to compensate went off in

time to escape the continuing tightening of the

screws brought on by current conditions. All the

big shows all over the world have now been cancelled for the foreseeable future, and the small

ones appear to be next. I fear that this trend will

continue into the New Year. Along these lines,

we decided that we will not be participating at

the next Nuremburg Toy Fair slated for February,

and it has since been reported by the organizers

that it will be rescheduled for the summer. We

will not be able to commit to attending even

then, and it will likely mean an interruption in

a string of twenty-five years of our attendance.

It’s a crying shame, but what can you do? Every

unpleasant condition that comes about will end,

and normality will find its way back to us at some

point, and so will our attendance at Nuremburg.

Let’s hope that it will be in 2022, because we will

have much to show by then!

Vaclav Sorel left us on September 12th. This

was a man that has done more for our hobby

than pretty much anyone else. Throughout the

seventies and eighties, he opened up the incredible world of (not only) plastic modelling to

us boys and even some girls back then. He put

into motion the fascination that enabled this

hobby to stay with most of us well into adulthood. He showed us how to build plastic kits, he

showed us just how many of them there were in

the world, he introduced us to not only the selection and availability of domestic kits, but also

what was available in the world as a whole, and

he inspired the majority of us to put in the effort

to try and get our hands on some of those great

western kits. This led to the evolution of communication with contacts that has kept growing to

this day. He introduced the history of it all, and

pointed out things that were officially hidden

from public view and things that were either

overblown or underappreciated. He wasn’t the

only one that did all this, but among those that

did, he was a giant. It is noteworthy that he was

able to continue with his work even after the revolution, something that many researchers and

authors were not able to accommodate. Vaclav

could do it, and he continued to do it to the end

of his life. He was, and will continue to be, a major influence. He will be missed.

After Vaclav suffered a stroke in February, requiring intense treatment and rehabilitation,

Zdenek Sebesta, a well known modeler and friend of Vaclav, and myself, tried to do what we

could to help the process along. We set up a fund

in his name, the proceeds of which were directed to his stay at the rehabilitation centre. Over

a three month period, some 840,000 Cz Krowns

were raised. Unfortunately, only a small amount

of the money collected went to the intended

facet of Vaclav’s needs, and we will begin negotiating with the caretaker of the fund, Z nesnaze

21, as to what to do with the money that still remains. Our proposal is to use it to promote modelling among the young. We would also like to

erect a memorial to Vaclav Sorel in Letnany. The

city has agreed to this idea, and has also allocated a new street to be named in his honor. As

far back as the summer, and along with Zdenek

Sebesta and our colleagues at Special Hobby,

we have decided to issue a special kit in honor

of Vaclav and his work. We originally wanted to

put the proceeds raised from the proposed kit’s

sales to the fund, but the event of his passing,

we have decided to allocate the proceeds of the

sales to the erection of the memorial. The kit in

question is in 1:72nd scale, and the theme is the

P-40L. Vaclav had a lot to say about this Warhawk

and of Lubomir Ulehla, who flew it as a member

of the Free French Air Force. ABC magazine published the write up as well as a monograph on the

P-40L flown by Ulehla. Our kit is based on these

publications. The kit is from Special Hobby, and

Eduard will prepare the box, the instructions and

the decals. Included will be copies of the article,

and write ups on Vaclav Sorel. Lubomir Ulehla

and Jaroslav Velc, who’s boxart will be used. The

original Velc illustration has unfortunately been

hopelessly lost, but it has been possible to recreate it well enough from copies as to make it

useable as a small print for inclusion in the kit.

There will be one thousand kits produced and is

available from today on our and Special Hobby’s

websites. It was also available at all four above

mentioned September events.

Unfortunately, it would appear that there

will be no more events at which we could offer

this kit for the remainder of the year. Even this

year’s Iron Bunny slugfest has been cancelled.

The main organizer of the event, as well as the

venue, have fallen under the directives defined

by current restrictions, have made it impossible

INFO Eduard - October 2020