New Airfix Spitfire FR MK XIV

[Max Salas]

Just to ask you guys (since most of you are in Good old England) what you know about this....

 

https://imodeler.com/2018/11/airfix-new-tool-1-48-supermarine-spitfire-fr-mk-xiv-review/

 

cheers

[Troy Smith]

Hi Max

 

been hotly debated already

looks like it will be a success though.

 

cheers

T 

 

[Max Salas]

Thanks Troy....didn't found that topic until now...but man!! it's a bitter sweet new...being buying and searching for all the needed bits to do a Mk XIV and a MK 18 for over a year and a half..!!!! always happens..!!!!

[Troy Smith]

52 minutes ago, Max Salas said:

Thanks Troy....didn't found that topic until now...but man!! it's a bitter sweet new...being buying and searching for all the needed bits to do a Mk XIV and a MK 18 for over a year and a half..!!!! always happens..!!!!

Hi Max

Well, you can still do them,  the Airfix kit is an FR XIV, so not a high back XIV or a Mk.18

Have a read of the thread, as there are links to info on the 18 wing and correting the Academy kit..

 

and welcome to the site...  one hint, the search is not very good,  try adding britmodeller into a google search term.

cheers

T

[NPL]

11 hours ago, Max Salas said:

Thanks Troy....didn't found that topic until now...but man!! it's a bitter sweet new...being buying and searching for all the needed bits to do a Mk XIV and a MK 18 for over a year and a half..!!!! always happens..!!!!

This is the law of nature. But Troy, it should be quite easy to produce the Mk.18. Now we may hope that Airfix will keep it a little longer as part of their program than the Mk.I which has already been removed (Tamiya most likely happy about that).

[Giorgio N]

12 hours ago, Max Salas said:

Thanks Troy....didn't found that topic until now...but man!! it's a bitter sweet new...being buying and searching for all the needed bits to do a Mk XIV and a MK 18 for over a year and a half..!!!! always happens..!!!!

 

Max, yes that's always what happens to us modellers: when we finally find all we need to build that specific variant, someone issues a kit making all our purchases redundant 😁

What is good is that finally we'll have an accurate XIV and I really see no problem in converting this into a Mk.18 based on the pictures that Airfix showed.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Giorgio N

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, NPL said:

Now we may hope that Airfix will keep it a little longer as part of their program than the Mk.I which has already been removed

 

This seems to be the new Airfix policy,  probably related to the financial situation,  of doing a fairly limited run,  in that it removes the problem of storing unsold stock, (they had a big Black friday clearance a couple of years ago),  as well as the capital tied up in that, and then allows for reboxings (popular with Airifx collectors) and keeps up demand,  so folks are less likely to wait for the kit to end up in a sale, as they tend to sell out rather than hanging around, so they get bought, rather than waiting for a knockdown price.(what, me?..never ) 

A pain if you just want to go and buy the kit,  but looks like good business practice for Airfix.

 

[Work In Progress]

Yes: a few years ago I would have waited for the 1/24 Hellcat to be down to half price before stocking up, but as things are now I think that would be a risky strategy.

[NPL]

4 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

 

This seems to be the new Airfix policy,  probably related to the financial situation,  of doing a fairly limited run,  in that it removes the problem of storing unsold stock, (they had a big Black friday clearance a couple of years ago),  as well as the capital tied up in that, and then allows for reboxings (popular with Airifx collectors) and keeps up demand,  so folks are less likely to wait for the kit to end up in a sale, as they tend to sell out rather than hanging around, so they get bought, rather than waiting for a knockdown price.(what, me?..never ) 

A pain if you just want to go and buy the kit,  but looks like good business practice for Airfix.

 

At least we know now that it is best to get a few ASAP. I have two or three Mk.I's, so not a problem, and the new Tamiya tells us that we can wait. 

 

As my late old mother always said: If you want it, buy it! But she was also married when young to a Swedish billionaire.

[EwenS]

The following is an extract from the Hornby trading statement issued to the Stock Market last Thursday. So buy the discounted items when you see them. Once they are gone there is no guarantee they will be seen again.

 

Discounting

 

The restructuring of our balance sheet earlier this year has allowed us to reinforce our policy of not providing discounted items to meet short term objectives. This has resulted in lower sales, but we have benefited with higher margins.

 

There is still a large amount of stock at retailers that was sold at aggressively discounted prices. Some of the large blocks of stock of "bread-and-butter" items that were sold represented more than a year's supply for our entire market. An example of this is track for our "00" railway business. This means that there is still an overhang of incredibly low-priced track being sold that needs to clear before our sales rates return to more normal levels.

 

The removal of these discounts has allowed us to start to regain the trust with our retail partners and customers which in turn will allow us to rebuild our sales over the long term. An important part of this process is making sure all our retailers can compete on a level playing field. We are in the process of peeling back the strategy of offering lower pricing to larger retailers as an easy way to inflate short term sales.

 

Some of these retailers have begun to use the price advantage and associated customer traffic we handed them to produce models that compete directly with our own. We do not think it is beneficial in the long term to provide an advantage to those businesses that seek to compete directly with us.

Another benefit of avoiding discounting is the smoother profile to our inventory and working capital needs. We should be able to maintain less volatile working capital balances and provide greater visibility to our manufacturers, which is an important part of our strategy to rebuild the trust in every part of our supply chain.

[Max Salas]

Thanks to all the kind replays....I see no big problem in making a High back using the PR XIX together with this new one...and for what I saw...doing a MK 18 will be fairly easy as well...and then you'll have a accurate FR XIV.....all in all...this new tooling is a most welcome news...so, save three for me!!!

[Antti_K]

Hello Max and all,

 

looking at the CAD pictures I think that this new kit looks very good. To my eye the nose looks much better than that of Airfix 1/48 scale PR.XIX. I'm certainly going to use both to build a "better" PR.XIX. I hope someone will make a better canopy for the recce bird as well...

 

Cheers,

Antti

[NPL]

Available from Barracuda or Rob Taurus. Check Hannants

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Antti_K said:

To my eye the nose looks much better than that of Airfix 1/48 scale PR.XIX.

the only complaint I have heard about the Airifix PR XIX nose is the spinner/nose ring is slightly undersize,  but not noticeably so.  

see

http://aeroscale.kitmaker.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=SquawkBox&file=index&req=viewtopic&topic_id=213816&page=1

 

Always interested in possible glitches, but with a bit more information or detail of the problem.   

 

[Antti_K]

Hello Troy!

 

I've built three Airfix PR.XIXs using close-up photos and some information from maintenance manual as a reference. I checked the spinner diameter and length but can't find a problem there. In each case it looks however that the lower cowling is too narrow when viewed from the front. The curvature should be wider. In those CAD pictures the shape looks better. Also the cylinder row bulges above exhaust pipes are too rounded at the back. They should be more pointed. I've been also wondering whether the propeller thrust line and angle locates at the right height above water line.

 

The canopy of course falls out of this topic but it is out of shape. The height should be the same at the front and at the rear edges and the highest point should locate in the middle. In all my three kits the front edge is taller and the tallest point is well forward of the mid point. Unfortunately this can not be fixed by sanding.

 

I'm also waiting for someone to release a complete set of stencils for Mk.XIV and PR.XIX in 1/48 scale.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[Denford]

23 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

 

This seems to be the new Airfix policy,  probably related to the financial situation,  of doing a fairly limited run,  in that it removes the problem of storing unsold stock, (they had a big Black friday clearance a couple of years ago),  as well as the capital tied up in that, and then allows for reboxings (popular with Airifx collectors) and keeps up demand,  so folks are less likely to wait for the kit to end up in a sale, as they tend to sell out rather than hanging around, so they get bought, rather than waiting for a knockdown price.(what, me?..never ) 

A pain if you just want to go and buy the kit,  but looks like good business practice for Airfix.

 

But there are no free meals.  North American (or whoever) it is who 'owns' rights to B-25, P-51, etc charge royalties per production run at least acccording to a posting here some while back.  Continued releases and re-releases come at an added price.

So maybe Airfix have sets of B-25 sprues / overtrees awaiting later releases.  These must surely come as the current ones even have the single exhaust stack of the earliest models!  On the face of it, this runs counter to your posting, but I believe (and others  may know better) that once a machine is set up and producing quality sprues there is very little cost to producing more overtrees.  These aren't kits and wouldn't be valued as such: perhaps 'work in progress' or something like that.

 

I wish I could have selectively quoted from your posting but the first sentance run to four and a bit lines!  Whatever would  my English teacher have said?

[Giorgio N]

36 minutes ago, Denford said:

But there are no free meals.  North American (or whoever) it is who 'owns' rights to B-25, P-51, etc charge royalties per production run at least acccording to a posting here some while back.  Continued releases and re-releases come at an added price.

So maybe Airfix have sets of B-25 sprues / overtrees awaiting later releases.  These must surely come as the current ones even have the single exhaust stack of the earliest models!  On the face of it, this runs counter to your posting, but I believe (and others  may know better) that once a machine is set up and producing quality sprues there is very little cost to producing more overtrees.  These aren't kits and wouldn't be valued as such: perhaps 'work in progress' or something like that.

 

I wish I could have selectively quoted from your posting but the first sentance run to four and a bit lines!  Whatever would  my English teacher have said?

 

In the end every business decision is a compromise. It's true that once a machine is set for a production run it's cheaper to make a big one rather a small one and then having to set the system up again in the future. At the same time it's also true that storage costs money and really over the years we've seen every company trying to reduce the stocks of pretty much everything, be it materials needed for the production or completed goods ready for sale. In an ideal world every piece produced should fly off the counter in the lowest possible time, in the real world this does not happen but the worst possible situation is ending up with large stocks of unsold goods that must at some point be cleared. This seems to have occurred to Airfix a few times in the past, good for us modellers as meant the sudden availability of kits at very low prices, not good for Airfix as meant reduced margin on these items.

The strategy of continuing releasing kits with different boxes and decal options of course has some merits and also some risks. It is more expensive as even without licensing issues requires new boxes, decal sheets and instructions to be drawn and printed. Even just introducing a new product code itself adds costs to a company...

At the same time is a good way to keep the demand going, every time the new box is issued someone will be tempted even if they already have the previous one and the word "new" may also attract buyers who didn't consider the kit the first time. Doing successive runs also allows a company to base the production numbers on the results of the previous ones, with less risks of excessive production. Hasegawa has been doing this for years with apparently good success. Tamiya on the other hand has never resorted to such strategy. That both keep going must mean that both strategies are valid within the context of each company.

 

Regarding reissues, I noticed the effectiveness of this strategy myself with the Airfix 1/72 Hawk: this is a kit I know well, I've built one and have a couple in the stash, it's not the best Hawk on the market anymore and my rational side tells me that the new tool Revell kit is the one to buy. Yet when Airfix announced a rebox with new decals for 2018 I suddenly felt the urge to pick one as I really like the new markings. I know I could get the same markings in an aftermarket sheet and use them on the superior Revell kit but I'm still tempted by the Airfix one..

[PhantomBigStu]

8 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

 

In the end every business decision is a compromise. It's true that once a machine is set for a production run it's cheaper to make a big one rather a small one and then having to set the system up again in the future. At the same time it's also true that storage costs money and really over the years we've seen every company trying to reduce the stocks of pretty much everything, be it materials needed for the production or completed goods ready for sale. In an ideal world every piece produced should fly off the counter in the lowest possible time, in the real world this does not happen but the worst possible situation is ending up with large stocks of unsold goods that must at some point be cleared. This seems to have occurred to Airfix a few times in the past, good for us modellers as meant the sudden availability of kits at very low prices, not good for Airfix as meant reduced margin on these items.

The strategy of continuing releasing kits with different boxes and decal options of course has some merits and also some risks. It is more expensive as even without licensing issues requires new boxes, decal sheets and instructions to be drawn and printed. Even just introducing a new product code itself adds costs to a company...

At the same time is a good way to keep the demand going, every time the new box is issued someone will be tempted even if they already have the previous one and the word "new" may also attract buyers who didn't consider the kit the first time. Doing successive runs also allows a company to base the production numbers on the results of the previous ones, with less risks of excessive production. Hasegawa has been doing this for years with apparently good success. Tamiya on the other hand has never resorted to such strategy. That both keep going must mean that both strategies are valid within the context of each company.

 

Regarding reissues, I noticed the effectiveness of this strategy myself with the Airfix 1/72 Hawk: this is a kit I know well, I've built one and have a couple in the stash, it's not the best Hawk on the market anymore and my rational side tells me that the new tool Revell kit is the one to buy. Yet when Airfix announced a rebox with new decals for 2018 I suddenly felt the urge to pick one as I really like the new markings. I know I could get the same markings in an aftermarket sheet and use them on the superior Revell kit but I'm still tempted by the Airfix one..

re the hawk, not been picked up buts in not their most recent hawk tooling, airfix actually have two different hawks in the catalogue, the plastic in the reds boxing is a slightly newer tool......

[NPL]

14 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

the only complaint I have heard about the Airifix PR XIX nose is the spinner/nose ring is slightly undersize,  but not noticeably so.  

see

http://aeroscale.kitmaker.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=SquawkBox&file=index&req=viewtopic&topic_id=213816&page=1

 

Always interested in possible glitches, but with a bit more information or detail of the problem.   

 

It seems that the late Edgar's comment covers this discussion. But two nice Spitfire XIX's, although the Swedish roundels are modern and not used on their XIX's (you can get the right ones from Rebell Hobby).

[Bedders]

On storage costs, Airfix might be able to save 33% by making me a 1/72 Spitfire XIV. Please? Pretty please? Pretty please woth knobs on? And two bars, oakleaves/swords/diamonds?

 

Justin

[Troy Smith]

On 28/11/2018 at 09:37, Denford said:

I wish I could have selectively quoted from your posting

you can, 

highlight text with cursor, and you get a "quote this" box

On 28/11/2018 at 09:37, Denford said:

but the first sentance run to four and a bit lines!  Whatever would  my English teacher have said?

 

Probably "Denford, that's not how to spell 'sentence', and why are wasting your time time discussing  toy aeroplanes..."    

it may not have been a very well constructed sentence,  but it covered the points that have been made here in other threads.

 

On 28/11/2018 at 09:37, Denford said:

but I believe (and others  may know better) that once a machine is set up and producing quality sprues there is very little cost to producing more overtrees.  These aren't kits and wouldn't be valued as such: perhaps 'work in progress' or something like that.

 

yes, but there is the cost of boxes, instructions and decals.   By "unsold stock" I meant the whole package, not  just the plastic.

 

As the plastic tends to the same sprues, and is a lot less sensitive to environment  (heat, humidity) than card, paper and especially decals.

So store overtrees, and do the packaging as and when needed.

which leads to this

On 28/11/2018 at 09:37, Denford said:

But there are no free meals.  North American (or whoever) it is who 'owns' rights to B-25, P-51, etc charge royalties per production run at least acccording to a posting here some while back.  Continued releases and re-releases come at an added price.

I'm not sure if Airfix do the printing and boxing in India, or do that here. Anyone know? 

 

I know printing usually has a minimum amount for bringing down per unit cost, but then that does not fall off significantly much per unit after that that 'plateau' 

 

While the  research and moulds are the biggest chunk of cash, after that the cash hungry bits are the boxes, instructions and decals,   while with the moulding, as suggested, once the machines are up and running,  as well as getting the production run going smoothly, you run off approx 10,000 units.

Say the  printing cost 'plateau'  is approx 5,000 units, so you do that, and then when that has sold out, do a rebox.   

 

OK, you need to do new artwork and decals, but then you have the 'new version'  boxing, which appeals to collectors and  enthusiasts for the type

 

If they pay a licence for each run,  then that is another upfront cost, which can be differed to when a new run is done, which given my point about both novelty of a new version/boxing, and generating demand via limited availability.  There was another posting here recently about  Airfix avoiding annoying normal suppliers when major  discounting happens, i presume the exception to this is when Aldi/Lidl  offer to take a massive amount of kits for Christmas gifts

 

This is supposition, I know we have member here who are far more knowledgeable about the whole process, @Ratch seems to know a fair amount. 

[Ratch]

11 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

I'm not sure if Airfix do the printing and boxing in India, or do that here. Anyone know? 

From my conversations with Airfix staff (some time ago) I had the impression that kits were shipped to the UK complete.

[Denford]

I'll try and revert to the thread!

There  were postings about the possibility of Airfix releasing an FXVlll

My references to it are a little vague talking about it being 'strengthened', 'virtually indistinguishable from the low back XlV'.

Can anyone explain the visible, external differences?

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Denford said:

There  were postings about the possibility of Airfix releasing an FXVlll

My references to it are a little vague talking about it being 'strengthened', 'virtually indistinguishable from the low back XlV'.

Can anyone explain the visible, external differences?

 

Yes.   The main external difference is the wing panelling. Easy enough to modify.

 

I think there are some other small detail, light position in wing?  The photos should give enough information though.

HTH

[Graham Boak]

and the fin/rudder.