BFC

In November, we celebrated the nine years from

setting up the BFC. In honor of that anniversary,

we are releasing a new membership initiation kit,

the Tempest Mk.V. The kit features two fictitious

markings and two historical, and a collection of

accessories that are common to these club entry

kits. With the Tempest, we see a return of Eduard Kleinkonnig and the two fictitious markings

mentioned. One is a “what-if” Tempest of the

Czechoslovak Police, while the other illustrates

a hypothetical aircraft operating from the HMS

Habakuk. The ship is worthy of our Hero and was

to be built from blocks of ice, and all indications

are that this project was taken seriously. We can

smirk over the concept, but let’s take under consideration the number of desperation projects

that were meant to be taken seriously and have

come to light, and do not avoid even our industry.

deling point of view are covered by the article by

Martin Cerny ”Build Build Build”, outlining exactly

that using the Tora Tora Tora! kit. It was built over

two days at a weekend event put on by Kaznejov

modeller´s club.

In the next Eduard Info, I will inform you on the

planned releases for the latter half of 2022, something about the year after that, and of all the

new innovations and plans across all our lines

for the year just about to start.

As with every year previous, our e-shop will be

closed just before Christmas. Any orders that

we receive up to December 20 will go out before

Christmas. The retail department will be off after

that. Resumption of retail operations is anticipated for January 7, 2022.

Historical Articles and other Literature

The adventures of Eduard Kleinkonnig in the

RAF and the Royal Navy, including on the HMS

Habakuk, are the work of Jan Bobek in his fantasy short ”Storm Over the Antarctic”. That will

be published in the January newsletter. And this

brings us to today’s historical articles.

The Treners are the focus of an article describing

the defection of famous aerobatic pilot Ladislav

Bezak by Richard Plos. It’s about the defection

in 1971 from the then CSSR to West Germany. He

used his privately owned Z-226T to escape and

he managed to fit his whole family into the OK-MUA Trener. That´s one is featured as a marking

option in the kit “Trener”.

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941,

from the American point of view is covered by

renowned author Paul Molesworth. His article

has quite fitting title: Caught with a pants down.

The attack from the Japanese viewpoint is covered by the Jan Bobek article Tora Tora Tora!.

The Zeros that attacked Pearl Harbor from a mo-

Happy Modeling!

Vladimir Sulc

INFO Eduard - December 2021

I wish you a pleasant and inspirational read of

the following pages.

* Modeling in Papua New Guinea is part of the

popular cargo cults there. These have a connection going back to World War II, when Australian

and American planes and ships brought cargo to

New Guinea, a variety of useful and otherwise

hard-to-reach items that could be exchanged

with Americans and Australians on the black

market for local products. Hence the “Cargo” connection. At the end of the war, the influx of cargo ceased, but faith in its return has lasted in the

75 years since the end of the war, passed down

from generation to generation. To help attract it,

the local population has used proven mystical

methods, consisting of creating artifacts to summon the desired cargo. A typical procedure is

the construction of a quasi-airfield at the edge of

the jungle, created by pruning trees and optically

modifying the terrain into an airport – however,

the general characteristic of the local area is

not affected much by landscaping. This makes

these cargo airports deadly traps for small aircraft, which can try to land on such an area in the

event of a navigational error, usually with fatal

consequences. The cargo airport also includes a

tower, where the services of quasi-guides alternate. These cargo attendants are equipped with

coconut shell headphones, holding an imitation

microphone in their hands, and patiently waiting

for the arrival of aircraft full of coveted cargo.

Cargo modeling thus has a mystical form that

does not bring practical results in the form of

built models, because even unbuilt kits will never

reach New Guinea. The truth is that this is probably the most successful of New Guinea cultural

export phenomena, as various cargo projects are

being created in our civilization across all fields,

including modeling. The famous American physicist and Nobel laureate Richard P. Feynman once

defined the concept of cargo science, operated

not for the purpose of achieving scientific progress, but for the purpose of efficiently drawing

various grants and state subsidies. We can observe similar phenomena outside of science, and

we have several cases of successful operations

of cargo projects in our field. These are extremely colorful projects that would almost be worth

writing a book about. Well, modelers themselves

in all countries of the world often show, in terms

of built models, results that clearly show the parameters of the cargo cult. That is “nil” or zero,

as in zero models built, from which it could be

concluded that the Zero is the most popular model of all time. Sources: Vojtěch Novotný: Papuan

(semi)truths, Dokořán s.r.o. Publishing House,

2010, ISBN: 978-80-7363-279-3); Richard P. Feynman: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, Mladá

Fronta, 1989, ISBN: 80-204-0023-0.

But I made up the passage about cargo modeling in New Guinea, I don't have any proof of the

existence of this hobby in that part of the World…

eduard

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