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Airfix 2019


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8 hours ago, Plasto said:

Airfix accounted for around 6 million  in total revenue .

The really scary part is that one might find oneself realizing that they account for a measurable percentage of Airfix's total income.

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11 minutes ago, Procopius said:

The really scary part is that one might find oneself realizing that they account for a measurable percentage of Airfix's total income.

If they released the following, all in 1/72, I certainly would (I'd also end up living in a house made of kit boxes):

Avro Anson 

Gloster Meteor I/ III

Fairey Battle

Westland Lysander

 

 

 

 

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18 hours ago, Plasto said:

Yes but a lot more of them.  In the 2017 report (which is rapidly becoming history) Airfix accounted for around 6 million  in total revenue . Slot cars were 12 million.  So you’d have to sell a lot of old 1960’s tooled kits wrapped up in a new box to double your revenue. How big is the nostalgia market? So I don’t see Airfix Classics as being a panacea for the issues.

 

What channel does the bulk of Airfix sales go??

 

In 2017 we were told it was a reasonably even split between national retailers and independent retailers and export at around 20% for each channel. I wonder what the revenue and channel to market figures look like now given the refocusing and change in the discounting policy?

 

 

WHO aIRFIX OR aTLANTIC MODELS

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10 hours ago, Beard said:

If they released the following, all in 1/72, I certainly would (I'd also end up living in a house made of kit boxes):

Avro Anson 

Gloster Meteor I/ III

Fairey Battle

Westland Lysander

 

I would happily live in a house made of boxes of those releases :D

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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10 minutes ago, Andre B said:

What about an Airfix reissue of their F-86F Sabre's but this time with Skyblazer's decals?

 

http://aerobaticteams.net/en/resources/i210/Skyblazers-F-86F-Sabre-Gallery.html

 

Cheers / André

Maybe a future release in their new classic range?

 

Trevor 

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1 hour ago, Max Headroom said:

Maybe a future release in their new classic range?

 

Trevor 

An nice idea, Trevor. 

 

But I think I rather se the nice looking blue and white striped F-86D Sabre in the classic range.

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/263279-airfix-02061-1-north-american-f-86d-sabre

 

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/airfixtributeforum/viewtopic.php?t=4753&amp=1&start=20

 

Cheers / André

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1 hour ago, Max Headroom said:

Maybe a future release in their new classic range?

 

Trevor 

The F-86E/F is one of Airfix's newer tools. They only had the very different F-86D in their legacy tooling, but they did release the Heller tooling in an Airfix box in 2003.

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The question is why haven’t they re popped the F-86D? 

 

Its a nice but simple kit. It has good box art appeal with a shark mouth scheme and apart from the Hasegawa kit has relatively little mainstream competition... It also pops up in ‘Airfix Wishlist threads’ reasonably frequently...

 

The same could be said for the F-80

Perhaps the tooling isn’t viable??

I wonder just how much of the classic tooling bank is actually useable. How much of it needs a significant overhaul which means capital investment and how much is not viable...

 

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I would guess at three reasons for not releasing more of the 'Classics' in the first batch:

  • To 'test the water' and see how sales of a selected few initial re-releases go; if they don't sell very well you might end up with surplus of perhaps half a dozen kits rather than dozens if you over-commit on moulding runs for too many kits
  • Spread production expenses over a period of time rather than paying for a large number of different mouldings in one go; any profits from the first set of Classics releases could perhaps subsidise subsequent ones increasing profit even further
  • To try to avoid diluting sales by issuing too many kits in one go when modellers might perhaps only buy one re-release in one go but might buy two or more re-releases spread over a period of months

Some of the tooling might of course no longer be viable, certainly some of it was worn out on retirement, like the original Defiant, but I would suspect the F-80 and F-86 didn't get produced in such large numbers as the old Defiant which was always a pretty good seller and was usually available over a period of almost 50 years so the moulds for the F-80/F-86 might still be in pretty good nick...

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Plasto said:

The question is why haven’t they re popped the F-86D? 

 

Its a nice but simple kit. It has good box art appeal with a shark mouth scheme and apart from the Hasegawa kit has relatively little mainstream competition... It also pops up in ‘Airfix Wishlist threads’ reasonably frequently...

 

The same could be said for the F-80

Perhaps the tooling isn’t viable??

I wonder just how much of the classic tooling bank is actually useable. How much of it needs a significant overhaul which means capital investment and how much is not viable...

 

The F-86D kit was first released in 1975 and was last available in 1989.

 

The F-80C was released in 1974 but was last in production in 2001. 

 

I have a copy from the last production run of the F-80C and the parts did not show any indications of a mould that was worn out. It's a mystery why the D has not been released more recently; the mold should be in good shape given how little use it had. There are a lot of possibilities for interesting marking options since the D was also used by ROKAF, JASDF, Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Denmark, Phillipines, and ROCAF (Taiwan AF).

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33 minutes ago, Plasto said:

The question is why haven’t they re popped the F-86D? 

 

Its a nice but simple kit. It has good box art appeal with a shark mouth scheme and apart from the Hasegawa kit has relatively little mainstream competition... It also pops up in ‘Airfix Wishlist threads’ reasonably frequently...

 

The same could be said for the F-80

Perhaps the tooling isn’t viable??

I wonder just how much of the classic tooling bank is actually useable. How much of it needs a significant overhaul which means capital investment and how much is not viable...

 

my mistake. I muddled up the two. Yes the Sabre Dog should be a classic re release and the E/F has a long future ahead of it. 

 

Trevor

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The honest answer is no one outside of Hornby really knows the condition of the tooling...

 

They are not going to tell us as the tooling is an asset and commercially sensitive..

 

While the F-86D tooling may have had little use if it was last run in 1989 or to put it another way 29 years ago who knows if it’s still viable.. . The F-80 tool hasn’t been run for 17 years same possibly applies..

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On 5/30/2018 at 11:04 AM, Albeback52 said:

Probably putting it mildly!!

😁

Allan

 

Still waiting for a Meteor Mk1 & Mk3, so you'll  be waiting as long as I will - though we can dream I s'pose🙄

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4 hours ago, Plasto said:

The honest answer is no one outside of Hornby really knows the condition of the tooling...

 

They are not going to tell us as the tooling is an asset and commercially sensitive..

 

While the F-86D tooling may have had little use if it was last run in 1989 or to put it another way 29 years ago who knows if it’s still viable.. . The F-80 tool hasn’t been run for 17 years same possibly applies..

Well...

As there still are interest in building the Airfix F-86D so why not try to find out if the moulds still are viable?

http://planecrazykid.blogspot.com/2012/04/sometime-in-1976-i-sat-down-at-my-dads.html?m=1

 

Edited by Andre B
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I don’t think Hornby are overly keen on telling enthusiasts what mould tools they have or which ones are able to be used. The closest we got of late was during the ‘madness’ that ensued around the Failed ‘Kit Starter’ social media co-creation project. 

 

We we found out that a number of tools were un serviceable the 1/48th Buccaneer amongst them..

 

A number of folk asked Hornby to tell us what tools were actually viable as it was all a bit of a stab in the dark and you had people asking for the Airfix SLR rifle and Boy Scout figures which was just nuts...

 

Hornby are unlikely to tell us what tools they have that are still viable as.

 

1. Letting us know may give their trade competitors a valuable insight.

2. The tooling bank is an asset that sits on the company books......

3. Letting us know the xxxx tool is U/S will embolden the cries for we need a new tool of xxxxx regardless of it’s commercial viability.

 

So while I’d like to see the F-86 or the F-80 or a few of the other nicer older kits released. 10 mins on King Kit probably turns up what I want as lot of kits are sold but fewer are built.. Plus if I really wanted a modern 1/72 F-86D I’d go for the Hasegawa kit. Maybe Hornby know that too hence it’s not been re-issued....

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In which case you'll just have to wait and see; my feeliing is that the moulds should still be presumed usable unless proved otherwise; they are made of steel and were intended to produce many production runs over many years so to imagine that they have suddenly worn out or cracked as a result of a lack of use - while that may be the case for a few individual moulds - seems unneccessarily bleak an outlook. The F-86 and F-80 for example are roughly contempraneous with the B-26 Marauder (1973) recently reissued to general approval regarding how the moulds have held up over the years.

 

Personally while I am glad for nostalgia's sake to see some of the better older moulds getting a re-release (just seeing the box-art of the WW1 infantry sets made me want to invest in a set of each) I'm actually more interested in what new tools we might hope for next year. 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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17 minutes ago, Stew Dapple said:

just seeing the box-art of the WW1 infantry sets made me want to invest in a set of each

The German and French infantry are okay, the American and British less so and, I wouldn't bother with the RHA.

Of course, the above is of no interest to a nostalgic purchase.

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9 minutes ago, Beard said:

The German and French infantry are okay, the American and British less so and, I wouldn't bother with the RHA.

Of course, the above is of no interest to a nostalgic purchase.

Haha no I didn't actually buy any of them, but the tug of nostalgia was surprisingly powerful; especially, funnily enough, for the RHA set which I never used to see in the shops when I was a boy...

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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2 hours ago, Plasto said:

 

 

So while I’d like to see the F-86 or the F-80 or a few of the other nicer older kits released. 10 mins on King Kit probably turns up what I want as lot of kits are sold but fewer are built.. Plus if I really wanted a modern 1/72 F-86D I’d go for the Hasegawa kit. Maybe Hornby know that too hence it’s not been re-issued....

That is very true of course but, it does not preclude them from being reissued.  With regard to the F-86D ,I would personally welcome this (and, the F-80C and, the F2-H Banshee and the F-84F............😀.!) for no other reason than the very good one that it would likely be considerably cheaper than the Hasegawa offering

 

Allan

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On ‎6‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 10:59 AM, Ratch said:

How? You used an inaccurate statement to illustrate a spurious point. If the pocket money market was dead why are the Starter Kits such big sellers? Experienced modellers are not the target audience for them.

Not sure what you identify as the inaccurate statement, and what as the spurious point. My point was that a new tool with a pocket money price will only work with a kit that has appeal to be sold in sufficient quantities, as the margin will be lower on a S. 1 or 2 new tool and hence need higher sales volume to recover costs over a reasonable period. Obviously Airfix have judged this point to be fulfilled by Spitfire, Me 109, Hurricane, Fw 190, P-51 and Gnat. Surely not Walrus or SR.53. Before that, when did they release the most recent new tool S. 1 and 2 kits ? Must have been 1978/9 with the Whirlwind (which was pushed to S. 2 to improve its margin) and D-9 and SPit I.

I have no idea how well the Starter kits sell, as I think haven't seen them on sale in Germany at all (which doesn't mean much). I only know that Hornby must have dumped a truckload of mainly 1/48 Lynx gift sets/starter kits which ended up with one or two online dealers and sold via ebay over several months. Those kits sold for an average of less than 20 € IIRC, I think I managed an average of slightly over 15 for the several I bought. The smaller sets may have sold better elsewhere as I can't remember them flooding ebay.de.

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On ‎6‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 9:34 AM, tempestfan said:

Yes, and that indicates the pocket money kit was dead 40 years ago, and it‘s even more dead now, the only reason and justification to do a new tool is when it may be considered a mega seller doing such quantities that it breaks even earlier because it also sells to Lil‘ Johnny. A well designed expensive 1/48 Walrus may make them money, a 1/72 new tool Walrus in Series 2 would be suicide.

Not sure I accept the equation of 1/72 with "pocket money" kits.  I reckon a well-designed expensive 1/48 Walrus was a "courageous" business decision from Airfix.  But they've missed out on the 3 (minimum)sales of a well-designed but not so expensive 1/72 Walrus I would have made.  As a purely philanthropic gesture to save them from suicide, you understand.  I leave it to Airfix to decide whether they make more money on one 1/48 Walrus or 3 1/72 ones.

 

PS Fail to see how a Walrus is any more "suicidal" than, a Jet Provost or B.E.2c.

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2 minutes ago, Seahawk said:

Not sure I accept the equation of 1/72 with "pocket money" kits.  I reckon a well-designed expensive 1/48 Walrus was a "courageous" business decision from Airfix.  But they've missed out on the 3 (minimum)sales of a well-designed but not so expensive 1/72 Walrus I would have made.  As a purely philanthropic gesture to save them from suicide, you understand.  I leave it to Airfix to decide whether they make more money on one 1/48 Walrus or 3 1/72 ones.

 

PS Fail to see how a Walrus is any more "suicidal" than, a Jet Provost or B.E.2c.

I didn’t make a „1:72=pocket money“ equation, I referred to a Series 2 pricing. A S. 4 Walrus May indeed be viable, like the Swordfish probably is/was, especially as they‘ll likely be able to reuse much of the CAD work.

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8 minutes ago, tempestfan said:

I didn’t make a „1:72=pocket money“ equation, I referred to a Series 2 pricing. A S. 4 Walrus May indeed be viable, like the Swordfish probably is/was, especially as they‘ll likely be able to reuse much of the CAD work.

Ah, okay: I accept that a brand-new highly detailed offering may mean a kit creeps up a series or maybe two.  Airfix need to be careful playing that particular card though.  Moving a kit up a series just for new transfers and the addition of a small additional sprue has sometimes seemed a bit rich and the Me 262 leap from series 1 to series 4 verged on extracting the urine. 

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2 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

In which case you'll just have to wait and see; my feeliing is that the moulds should still be presumed usable unless proved otherwise; they are made of steel and were intended to produce many production runs over many years so to imagine that they have suddenly worn out or cracked as a result of a lack of use - while that may be the case for a few individual moulds - seems unneccessarily bleak an outlook. 

I don’t think it’s a bleak outlook just a possibility given the time period since the last issue of the F-86D and to a lesser extent the F-80 and the fact The Airfix brand and it’s associated tooling repository has changed ownership at least 3 times in the period... Bordon inc, Allen and Maguire, Hornby and production has been in a few different locations.. So while tooling can be robust... It does need maintenance and no tooling is infallible hence the production issues with the Swift a few years back. It will likely need some work ( cavity polishing, new pins, a flash up here and there)  to get it back into production any 45 year old is going to need a bit of TLC to get the best out of it....

 

So if a tool is going to need that work to bring it into a useable state and it’s going to produce a relatively limited run for say Airfix Classics you can see why Hornby have chosen to use tooling that has had a more recent production history for the initial kits as its already up to production speed.. So the capital cost of getting that tooling producing is likely far lower... Which is good news when finance is on the ‘thin’ side...

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