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Airfix 2020


jenko

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20 hours ago, trickydicky210 said:

I would expect to see the following in the next 2 years

 

1/350 QEC

1/72 or 1/48 F35

1/72 Vulcan

1/72 MOSQUITO

 

Modified tools

1/48 Hunter F9

1/72 Wimpy

1/72 Naval SeaKing

1/72 RAF Bucanneer

1/48 Hurricane MkII

1/72 Beaufighter (MkI and long shot MkII)

1/48 Late Stuka D or G?

 

 

My Suggestions/Wish List

1/48 Lysander

1/48 Hunter T7/T8

1/48 METEOR T7

1/48 WESTLAND WASP/SCOUT

1/48 CHIPMUNK

1/72 CANBERRA B2

1/48 HAMPDEN/HALIFAX/LANCASTER (really think any of these would be a big seller)

1/48 SEAKING

1/48 PHANTOM (SPEY)

1/72 JAVELIN

1/48 GAZELLE

 

off the wall suggestions:

1/48 Wildcat

1/48 Zero

1/72 Venom

1/72 Tornado

1/72 Typhoon

1/48 SABRE

1/72 MARAUDER

1/72 B24

 

and i could go on and on

 

So keep the speculation coming

 

Rich

All I can say from what has slipped out over the years;

 

1/72 Vulcan depends on Victor sales. Also look at the gap between Valiant (2011) and Victor (2017)

 

1/48 Hunter FGA9 - we know this is coming after the F4

 

1/72 RAF Bucc - parts for an S.2B are in the cads

 

1/72 Beaufighter Mk.I/II - Mk.x kit is not tooled up to accomdate these

 

1/48 Stuka - same as the Beau 

 

1/48 Lysander - has been mooted as possible

 

1/48 Hunter T7/T8M - Airfix directly said no, hence the upcoming conversions

 

1/72 Canberra B.2 - Airfix said no, hence S&M model

 

1/48 Hampden - has been mooted as possible

 

1/48 Phantom - mooted and possibly killed off

 

1/72 B-24 - mooted to be the next 'Heavy' once B-17 variants are finished with.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

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1 hour ago, Truro Model Builder said:

An ideas meeting at Airfix:

 

"I know. Next time the photographers are in we'll leave a photo of a Blackburn Beverly on the wall with '1:72?' scrawled on it." 

 

 

You may be closer to the truth than you think! Disinformation is not unknown!

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1 hour ago, WV908 said:

All I can say from what has slipped out over the years;

 

1/72 Vulcan depends on Victor sales. Also look at thegap between Valiant (2011) and Victor (2017)1

1 /72 Canberra B.2 - Airfix said no, hence S&M model

1/48 Phantom - mooted and possibly killed off

1/72 B-24 - mooted to be the next 'Heavy' once B-17 variants are finished with.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

Interesting!  To be honest, if the Vulcan was the guaranteed ,sure fire best seller/goldmine so many people think it will be, is it not possible Airfix would have produced a new kit by now and/or other companies would be falling over themselves to produce same?  In fact,  should it not even have been their first V bomber kit?

1/48 Phantom? Well, maybe they feel that the availability of the old but still very good (and cheap) Revell kit has queered their pitch a little.

Shame about the Canberra. Any new kit in 1/72 of any variant would be nice.

B-24 would be nice as would a B-29

 

Allan

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25 minutes ago, Albeback52 said:

Interesting!  To be honest, if the Vulcan was the guaranteed ,sure fire best seller/goldmine so many people think it will be, is it not possible Airfix would have produced a new kit by now and/or other companies would be falling over themselves to produce same?  In fact,  should it not even have been their first V bomber kit?

1/48 Phantom? Well, maybe they feel that the availability of the old but still very good (and cheap) Revell kit has queered their pitch a little.

Shame about the Canberra. Any new kit in 1/72 of any variant would be nice.

B-24 would be nice as would a B-29

 

Allan

One of the reasons for speculation about an Airfix Vulcan is the extensive research that was done to produce the Corgi 1/72 die cast. It seemed natural at the time the Corgi model was released that an Airfix kit would be coming as well.

 

The Revell 1/48 Phantom FG.1/FGR.2 is, of course, the Hasegawa kit. It's getting on in years now, but I'm still not sure that Airfix can match the finesse of Hasegawa's surface detail.

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44 minutes ago, Albeback52 said:

Interesting!  To be honest, if the Vulcan was the guaranteed ,sure fire best seller/goldmine so many people think it will be, is it not possible Airfix would have produced a new kit by now and/or other companies would be falling over themselves to produce same?  In fact,  should it not even have been their first V bomber kit?

1/48 Phantom? Well, maybe they feel that the availability of the old but still very good (and cheap) Revell kit has queered their pitch a little. A B-24 would be nice as would a B-29

 

Allan

With the Vulcan, Airfix already had the 80's tooling, which was making money so there was no rush to upgrade it. I'm glad it wasn't first as then it would have been done by the team which did the Canberra and Valiant (Nimrod of the same era was tooled by Trumpeter), so would have had a lot of innacuracies. 

 

For the Phantom, the 1/48 Hasegawa kit is still very good, if not a little outdated in it's method of construction, but Airfix usually works irregardless of things like this. The problem with a 1/48 Airfix Phantom is the slating of the 1/72 kit for missing two vents and some other insignificant things - this hurts sales. Knowing you've already 'messed up' the same product in another scale, business sense dictates that even if you fix this it will hurt sales and development costs etc will not be worthwhile.  

 

A B-24 has unofficialy been on the cards for a while (not many knew of the 17 although it was rumoured after the Lanc). I can't say I've heard much on the possibility of a 29.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

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It won't be a Vulcan this year, the old one is still in the range. There will be a new tool - sometime.

The 1972 tool Mosquito was withdrawn from this year's range (much how the Hawker Typhoon was replaced in 2013). Rationally a new Mossie must be on the cards.

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4 hours ago, WV908 said:

With the Vulcan, Airfix already had the 80's tooling, which was making money so there was no rush to upgrade it. I'm glad it wasn't first as then it would have been done by the team which did the Canberra and Valiant (Nimrod of the same era was tooled by Trumpeter), so would have had a lot of innacuracies. 

 

For the Phantom, the 1/48 Hasegawa kit is still very good, if not a little outdated in it's method of construction, but Airfix usually works irregardless of things like this. The problem with a 1/48 Airfix Phantom is the slating of the 1/72 kit for missing two vents and some other insignificant things - this hurts sales. Knowing you've already 'messed up' the same product in another scale, business sense dictates that even if you fix this it will hurt sales and development costs etc will not be worthwhile.  

 

A B-24 has unofficialy been on the cards for a while (not many knew of the 17 although it was rumoured after the Lanc). I can't say I've heard much on the possibility of a 29.

 

 

Cheers,

  WV908

. I am not convinced that the issues with the Phantom kit did affect sales especially given that further boxings have followed. I don't think Airfix would have done that for a kit with adverse sales. However  we can surely agree to differ on that. I don't think it's worth arguing over! 😊

Yes, I agree the Revell kit is outdated but it has stood the test of time very well. My biggest gripe about it is the almost total lack of things to hang underneath it!

The B-29 was, admittedly, pure speculation on my part 😊.

Fair point about the Vulcan. It must still be raking in the cash! But, I still feel that, if it was going to be such a good sell, then other companies would have been churning them out long ago. However, time will tell I guess.

 

Cheers

 

Allan

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5 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

 

 

The Revell 1/48 Phantom FG.1/FGR.2 is, of course, the Hasegawa kit. It's getting on in years now, but I'm still not sure that Airfix can match the finesse of Hasegawa's surface detail.

No argument here! 😊.

 

Allan

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On 9/11/2019 at 12:53 PM, VMA131Marine said:

One of the reasons for speculation about an Airfix Vulcan is the extensive research that was done to produce the Corgi 1/72 die cast. It seemed natural at the time the Corgi model was released that an Airfix kit would be coming as well.

 

The Revell 1/48 Phantom FG.1/FGR.2 is, of course, the Hasegawa kit. It's getting on in years now, but I'm still not sure that Airfix can match the finesse of Hasegawa's surface detail.

I would have said the same the other day but having seen a review on the latest Buccaneer kit, the panel lines seem to be far more crisp than the latest rendition of their 1/72 Phantom FG.1/FGR.2 (Prefer the Fujimi kit)

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On 9/11/2019 at 1:15 PM, WV908 said:

The problem with a 1/48 Airfix Phantom is the slating of the 1/72 kit for missing two vents and some other insignificant things - this hurts sales. Knowing you've already 'messed up' the same product in another scale, business sense dictates that even if you fix this it will hurt sales and development costs etc will not be worthwhile.  

It would be disappointingly spineless of Airfix to be put off doing a 1/48 Phantom just because rude boys said nasty (but entirely justifiable) things about a 1/72 kit, unrelated to it in any way except subject.   What proportion of the entire target market (ie not just enthusiasts) would be aware of these flaws?  And how many of those would care?  And of them, how many would care enough not to buy the kit?  In any case the scale of the "messing up" is of an altogether different magnitude than say the MiG-15 or Hurricane II c.   Anyway, the mature response is to learn the lesson and get it right next time, not to retreat into one's shell.

 

Oh dear!  I hope I haven't given Airfix licence to go on producing kits that get it nearly, but not quite, right.

Edited by Seahawk
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It is a decent shape in general. However, many people have had difficulty building it, and the moulds may not in the greatest shape by now. 

A couple of a well illustrated recent build / improvement threads which will give you a good impression of what's involved:

 

I still think it is unlikely to be re-done for a good few years yet: there are still other large-ish 1/72 Airfix kits in more urgent need of replacement.

Edited by Work In Progress
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43 minutes ago, Work In Progress said:

It is a decent shape in general. However, many people have had difficulty building it, and the moulds may not in the greatest shape by now. 

A couple of a well illustrated recent build / improvement threads which will give you a good impression of what's involved:

 

I still think it is unlikely to be re-done for a good few years yet: there are still other large-ish 1/72 Airfix kits in more urgent need of replacement.

Reminding me I need to update my thread and do some more bits on the model

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This talk of the airfix vulcan makes me feel old......  I can remember riding my raleigh burner up to model toys in Kingston Road, Pompey to with hard saved money to buy one of the first Ken had in stock.  It was a revelation compared to the airfix or lindberg one and it had blue steel as well.... i guess time moves on... but back then it seemed awesome. 

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26 minutes ago, cati said:

This talk of the airfix vulcan makes me feel old......  I can remember riding my raleigh burner up to model toys in Kingston Road, Pompey to with hard saved money to buy one of the first Ken had in stock.  It was a revelation compared to the airfix or lindberg one and it had blue steel as well.... i guess time moves on... but back then it seemed awesome. 

But was it buildable ??  I only ask as many on here have suggested such....😝

 

 

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Airfix and Hornby are still not financially secure and it may be some lean years ahead, but whatever they decide to release it would need worldwide appeal and not a selected few. Therefore l would not be surprised to see one of their old 1/24 scale aircraft kits gets retired and the most likely candidate would be the Spitfire. If they could produce it between the £75-£100 price bracket that could be onto a winner. Next year is the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain which would be a ideal excuse to do one with a tie in with the film.

 

Regards

Robert

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When the Victor was announced at Telford I spoke with the Airfix design team, and they said it wasn't a question of if the Vulcan would be retooled, but when. Nothing has changed, but it is their usual strategy to remove the old tooling from the range a year (or so) before the new tool is announced.

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17 hours ago, Scimitar F1 said:

When is the list going to be announced? Is there going to be a big unveil at Telford?

 

Will

The flagship kit is usually announced at Telford and the whole range revealed after Christmas/New Year, before the Toy Fairs.

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Whilst the Vulcan is currently in the catalogue it's only as the VTS gift set and is 'out of stock' with no pre-order option. 

 

https://www.airfix.com/uk-en/avro-vulcan-b-mk2-xh558-vulcan-to-the-sky-gift-set-1-72.html

 

Maybe it's been left there as a double bluff. I'll put my money on black and say Vulcan will be the big announcement for Telford. 

 

Despite there being interest in a NT 1/72 version none of the other manufacturers seem to have suggested they would do it, so maybe they're just leaving it to Airfix...

 

TT

 

 

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On 9/11/2019 at 12:20 PM, Albeback52 said:

. I am not convinced that the issues with the Phantom kit did affect sales  ... .

Since I don't have sales figures like you may have, I can only say that the short-cut Phantom sure dissuaded me from getting more than one (sorry to disappoint you Seahawk).

 

Gene K

 

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22 hours ago, Gene K said:

Since I don't have sales figures like you may have, I can only say that the short-cut Phantom sure dissuaded me from getting more than one (sorry to disappoint you Seahawk).

 

Gene K

 

I don't actually have the sales figures. I was simply speculating. If, on the other hand, anyone has verifiable evidence that sales were affected, then perhaps they could please share it with us.

 

I suppose it all depends on your target market. Out of the thousands who have already bought the kits, how many are aware of the "issues" and, out of them, how many actually care? How m any are content to build the kit regardless?

The mere fact that we now have different boxings /versions of the same basic kit suggest to me that sales of the kit have in fact been very good and, that the kit, warts and all has been a great success.

Now, if people feel they cannot live with the Airfix kit and,prefer 30+ year old Fujimi kit, then that of course is their prerogative and I would not presume to argue with them.

Personally, I think the "issues" are minor, they don't spoil the look of the model and, I can totally live with them. I now have 5 of them in total! 😊

 

Allan

 

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