Strana 4
Dear Friends,
Hard to believe, but once again, instead of
a significant, interesting and hopefully
previously unreleased type of aircraft, we have
released another out of God knows how many
Spitfires. So it looks as though we have missed
another opportunity; if we weren't such die-hard
lovers of boring and uninteresting Spitfires,
we could have released, for example, a Sea
Vixen, preferably in the D.3 version and in 1:48
scale. Well, what can you do? It is what it is. We
are sticking to our plan, which is to reduce all
the kits that we have released so far, and will
release, in 1:48 scale to 1:72. This is not an easy
plan. In fact, it is very likely an unachievable
plan, as you surely can understand. It's kind
of like the hare that never catches up with
the tortoise, but we are doing what we can.
You can see the new Spitfire Mk.Vb is part of this
effort, but you can also just forget about trying
to see any complete sense in it and just enjoy
this Spitfire kit, because it is a damn nice and
fun little item. After all, it is not a rehash of old
kits, it is the first in the family of 72nd scale
Spitfires to include the Mk.I, II and V and it is
a new project that has almost nothing in common
with the older Mk.IX and Mk.VIII Spits. Yes,
of course it is a Spitfire, and these are versions
that preceded the Nines and Eights in terms of
development, but with these kits it is the other
way around. In our case, the Mk.IX kits precede
the Mk.V and Mk.I, and we are somehow going
against the flow of time, and this speaks well for
the new kits. The biggest weakness of the Mk.IX
(and VIII) kits is the small parts. Twelve years
ago, we had the molds for them made in China,
it was part of a project with which we wanted to
increase the production capacity of our 1:72nd
scale line by having the molds containing sprues
with small parts made in China. It was a very
adventurous affair, we carried out the plan to
the end and we actually made the molds for
two kits, the Spitfire Mk.IX and the Fw 190 A,
in China. We made the fuselage and wing parts,
and main airframe parts, ourselves, and a tool
shop in China made the small parts for us. But
I will not specifically say that this was successful,
it was a typical Pyrrhic victory, the molds were
far from our standard and you can see it in the
moldings. To tell the truth, I have never stopped
regretting this result. But I won't burden you
with that story today, you can read it in time in
my Plastos series about the history of plastic kit
production in Bohemia, which is being published
in our EMD journal. The important fact for today
is that the Spitfire Mk.Vb in 1:72 is 100% Eduard,
and that can be seen in the kit’s quality. But it's
not just about the small parts, of which there
are quite a bit, because the Spitfire simply had
a lot of development variants, a feature it shares
with the Bf 109 F and G, and we, because we
want to make the kits to the highest standard
possible with the full knowledge of the fact
that we won't please everyone anyway. Some
reviewer will always write somewhere that the
kits are complicated and that Tamiya kits go
together easier and quicker, which is of course
true and we won't contest that, or some other
expert will complain that the eighth incarnation
of the propeller is missing, a fundamental flaw,
because it was on Spitfires operating from
the grass strip in Beersheba causing him a
lifelong trauma. Which is, of course, absurd, but
it’s nothing that we would worry about, either.
If you want to find fault with those small parts,
I'll give you some advice. There are tiny holes in
the exhausts. Quite a few holes, just like on the
48th scale Spitfire Mk.V. Unfortunately, we can't
eliminate those holes, so we have no choice but
to ask for your indulgence. Either fill them in, or
leave them there, or don't buy the kit. But that
actually be a shame, the rest of the kit is very
nice and we give you a number of small parts
there two or three times, just in case, as so
often does happen, your tweezers send a small
part into oblivion, never to be heard from again.
Consider it compensation for the problem with
the exhausts.
But, you know, it's not just about the small
parts. The airframe parts have also undergone
development, after all, our technological
capabilities, regardless of the holes on the side
of the exhausts, have advanced considerably
over the last decade, and it seriously shows.
There are also subtle, raised rivets on the rear
of the fuselage, quite a rarity for 72nd scale
I would say, and although they are not
completely visible at first or second glance and
can be easily overlooked, they are charming
and if you decently highlight them, you will have
a very nice model in your display case. As is
customary with us, you have a decent number of
color versions to choose from, and if someone
wants to write to me again that the decals have
thick paint, shifted registration, faded colors,
and that we should return to using Cartograf for
our decals, please don't. We will not return to
using Cartograf decals, because we never put
them in our Profipack and Weekend kits anyway.
They also do not have thick ink layers and they
are not off-register and the colors are also fine.
I admit that we have not quite hit the mark on
some of the shades in the past, but we are trying
EDITORIAL
INFO Eduard4
December 2025