BWP

Got the new announcement today from Airfix regarding the release of the new Harrier GR.1 kit -- yay!! I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on one. Or ten. However, I spotted this laugh-out-loud line in the text of the announcement: Well, "first ever" if you don't count the old releases from Matchbox, Frog/Hasegawa, Lindberg and .. er, oh yeah ... Airfix!! And that's just 1/72 scale. I think there's one or two others in 1/48 scale; not sure about 1/32 or 1/144; and in 1/24 there was ... er, oh yeah ... Airfix!!! Who writes this stuff??

Actually now that I look closer I don't think this is a re-issue of the original AMT set. That set was scaled at 1/1600, whereas this is supposed to be 1/2500 (and your photos do indicate that the new kits are a lot smaller than the ones in my set). Round2 claims that not only the Romulan ship is new-tool, but so is the Klingon one, both "never before available at this scale" (the Enterprise has previously been released in a 1/2500 Cadet set with the Enterprise-A and Enterprise-B ). So it seems this is a "reboot" of the original AMT set but not a re-issue. Well now I have to get hold of it for myself! But not including any sort of stand is a bummer -- it's not like the Enterprise can balance on its secondary hull!

Is this a Round2 re-issue? It appears that they have done some work to improve the accuracy of the Romulan Warbird -- in fact it looks a completely new tool. The decals look pretty good too. However, the original issue of this set included a three-ship stand, as you can see in my build (the decals were 3rd-party): (The original stand was the triangular bit -- the round base it's mounted on is wooden.) What you could do is purchase an Airfix "5-plane" display stand and omit two of the stands?

Monogram never went away, although controlling ownership has bounced around a bit. It was Revell (USA) who went under. From Monogram Models, by Thomas Graham (pp.134-136): "In 1986 an opportunity ... to sell Monogram presented itself in a buyout offer from Odyssey Partners of New York. Odyssey ... had acquired an option to purchase Revell, Inc. However, Revell was not, and never had been, a very profitable company. ... The logic of uniting profitable Monogram with indebted Revell made financial sense .... "... None of the Revell staff or employees joined the new organization, and all of Revell's assets were moved to Monogram's facilities at Plant 2 in Des Plaines. .... "Monogram decided to keep Revell and Monogram products separate ... . Most company functions, from model design to kit production, were consolidated at the Morton Grove plant, meaning that the old Monogram team was now developing and producing products for two companies. "The unified company took the name Revell-Monogram, Inc., although some Monogram staffers groused that the names should be reversed. ... for tax purposes the Revell name had to be paramount, and, besides, surveys showed that world-wide the Revell name was much better known than Monogram. ... "Although Monogram and Revell maintained separate corporate identities so far as the public was concerned, as early as 1988 models made from Revell tooling began appearing in Monogram boxes and vice-versa. Then beginning in 1997 all kits were packaged in boxes with a new consolidated Revell-Monogram company logo. ... "Some old kits reappeared in their original, or at least vintage, packaging to appeal to kit collectors and the nostalgia market. ... Then in the year 2000 the Monogram Classics series brought back twenty-six old-time standard kits, with their original box art, under a retro Monogram label .... "From time to time the men at Revell-Monogram have considered dropping the Monogram name, but each time the decision has been to recognise the continuing magic of the Monogram trademark." At the time the above was published (2006) Revell (DE) and Revell-Monogram (USA) were separately-owned companies, though now of course they are both owned by the same umbrella company. It's all been a bit complicated ....

No offense taken. I'm still in the process of gathering F-104 documentation, my copies of the Daco book and of the Airdoc book are still somewhere in the postal system. I am very puzzled that what I would have thought is a very straight-forward question turns out to be so complicated that no two authors can agree! I wasn't trying to demonstrate the Wings of Fame article as being better or worse than any other source, it's just another data point! At least I hope that we can all agree that the original question has been answered correctly -- all CF-104s used the Lockheed C-2 seat?

There's an easy way to determine whether a new Airfix kit is "new tool" or not. It's the phrase "new tool". If the catalogue has that phrase, then it's a new tool. If the catalogue says just "new" and nothing else then they mean "old plastic, new box, probably new decals". Incidentally, "old" in "old plastic" above means "not new for this year". So a kit released even just last year, given a new decal scheme and nothing else, will be described as "new", not "new tool". However, there's no immediately obvious way to determine whether "old plastic" means "last year" or "last century". There's only one tiny caveat: an old(er) kit with a new sprue will still be called "new tool". For example, this year's release of the TSR.2-MS, which has a new weapon sprue, is listed as "new tool", even though the actual aircraft -- the TSR.2 itself -- is the same 1/72 kit as has been previously released on a couple of occasions.

Well, I can only work with the sources I have. Since all of my sources appear to say different things confusion would be inevitable, wouldn't it? Since you are stating something different again may I ask what your source is? Are you saying no F-104 was fitted with a MB Q5? Is there any discernible physical difference between the Q5 & Q7?

Given the relatively small sizes of many of the vehicles concerned, you'll be hard-pressed to notice the scale difference IMO. That's even assuming that the 1/76 kits are "perfectly" scaled and not slightly over-sized. I reckon the 1/72 Tilly could sit next to a 1/76 anything and seem perfectly OK to anyone not armed with a set of calipres. The difference in scale doesn't really become noticeable until you compare the larger, bulkier vehicles. You would see the difference if you had a 1/76 and 1/72 Bedford parked next to each other. However if you're constructing a diorama, the "secret" is not to park vehicles like that next to each other ... a 1/76 Bedford parked next to a 1/72 Lancaster (or any aircraft, really) is going to seem perfectly fine.

According to Kinzey's Detail & Scale on the Starfighter, the Lockheed C-2 was used in all non-US Starfighters except for the German, Dutch and Belgian F-104Gs, which used the MB Q5. However, other sources tell different stories. The Wings of Fame article states that the C-2 was the standard seat fitted, except for Denmark, which used the MB Q7, and only the first 15 German aircraft used the MB Q5, later refitting them with the C-2. I was pretty sure the MB Q5 was also used on Italian aircraft, which is stated in the Verlinden Lock On book, but now I don't know. Any way ... trying to make sense of the above, I would say that all CF-104s were fitted with the C-2. Probably.

Well, isn't that the point of the thread? I think (hope) that we can all agree that there are no companies that manage to get everything right, every time. Furthermore for every company that has different product lines (i.e., aircraft, tanks, ships, etc.) it's usually the case that the different product lines can enjoy (or suffer from) different reputations -- people may generally love SuperHobbyPlastic's aircraft kits but the same company's tank kits usually make people laugh, and not in a good way. Clearly in such cases there are different "teams" involved who approach their subjects in very different ways. The issue then becomes one of consistency within that particular product line. If a company's aircraft kits are consistently awful you just avoid them. If they're consistently good (by whatever definition of "good" that you choose to apply) then you pay attention to their new releases. Trumpeter seem to get a lot of stick because they just don't have that consistency so far as accuracy goes, although for people not specifically looking for accuracy then there seem to be far fewer complaints. Is the Trumpeter-bashing fair? Depends -- what length of string are you using to measure them by?

LifeColor have recently released a 3-paint "Battle of Britain" boxed set -- Dark Earth, Dark Green, & Sky. I can't comment on the colour fidelity (I have nothing to compare them to) but to my completely inexpert eyes they don't look completely wrong in the jars.

Volume 6 has just been published. The SAM website refuses to allow me to update the "invoice address" of my account, which shows the wrong post code. However the "delivery address" is just fine, and my orders get to my door very promptly, so I have no reason to complain.

Thanks for the information chaps! The Daco book is already on my "buy it soon" list. I was going to pass on the Verlinden book, but if I can find it for a reasonable price I'll pick up a copy.

I recently purchased a second-hand copy of this book and was surprised to find that, unlike other Warpaint titles I have seen, it contained no 1/72-scale plans. Then it occurred to me that maybe they were on a pull-out that has been, well, pulled out from my copy. Can anyone advise whether this book did in fact originally include plans? Any suggestions for "best" set of plans in 1/72 available, from magazine articles or whatever? I have the "Detail & Scale" but the plans there only cover the A & C variants. I have recently purchased from eBay an old copy of "Aviation News" which contains plans in a "Warpaint" article, but it hasn't arrived yet. I'm thinking that maybe these were the same as would have been in the book (assuming the book did come with plans originally)? It's a bit hard to tell for certain from the small eBay picture, but they seem reasonably detailed.

Um ... wow. My first thought would be to have it as a display item on the coffee table. And then I thought, no have it as the coffee table! Fantastic work.