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Airfix 2020 catalog - programme


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18 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

Of, course, but Airfix wouldn’t try to pass that old kit off as an E ... would they?

They probably would. I suspect (but hope I am wrong) that Jester's A-4 might be the same ancient A-4 that appeared in this guise before. The Top Gun F-14 is presumably the original 1972 kit too?

Why release them (and the "MiG-28") when there are far superior kits available.

I noticed the F-16 too. Surely that cannot be the rather crude 80s kit?

 

Allan

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16 hours ago, wombat said:

Pretty sure one of the previous boxings of the hurricane  has a two blade option though can’t recall which.

You are correct. They produced an early fabric winged Mk I which included a two blade prop and, Belgian markings

 

Allan

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11 minutes ago, Albeback52 said:

I noticed the F-16 too. Surely that cannot be the rather crude 80s kit?

Yes it is - has the same kit number - according scalemates - i thought it might be an Academy tool.

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6 minutes ago, trickydicky210 said:

Yes it is - has the same kit number - according scalemates - i thought it might be an Academy tool.

That's a bummer. I might have bought it if it was the Academy tool. I will check up on the F-14 because, I suspect that might be the ancient 1972 kit!

Allan

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26 minutes ago, Albeback52 said:

They probably would. I suspect (but hope I am wrong) that Jester's A-4 might be the same ancient A-4 that appeared in this guise before. The Top Gun F-14 is presumably the original 1972 kit too?

Why release them (and the "MiG-28") when there are far superior kits available.

I noticed the F-16 too. Surely that cannot be the rather crude 80s kit?

 

Allan

 

Because they are moulds that Airfix own and there will be modellers who will buy them. As all it takes is to get a new run of both kits and get decals, boxes and instructions printed, then why not ? It's not going to cost much to Airfix compared to a new tool and will generate some profit.

Reboxing someone else's tool is going to generate less profit to a company compared to a reissue of their own stuff, so we'll get a 1972 Tomcat (that was modified at some point with the later beavertail), an early '80s F-5E and a Skyhawk that may well be ancient (but hopefully they will use the newer mould)

 

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I think model companies pee in their own breakfast cereals by doing this. You have an on-screen magnet like Top Gun/Star Wars/Midway that might attract new people to try build a model, that´s related to the movie. What do you give them then? You give them flashy new boxart, instructions and colourful decals, great, but also a half-a-century old plastic kit with a lot of flash and a lousy fit, not that great. And then they think these newcomers, disappointed with the kit they have been fooled to buy and a half-finished build in the trash bin, will come back and buy another kit? Hardly. They manufacture great new kits! Sell them! Then there are us the weirdos that enjoy (some more some less) building the golden oldies but don´t try to sell them to the newcomers - please 😊. V-P 

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1 hour ago, Albeback52 said:

They probably would. I suspect (but hope I am wrong) that Jester's A-4 might be the same ancient A-4 that appeared in this guise before. The Top Gun F-14 is presumably the original 1972 kit too?

Why release them (and the "MiG-28") when there are far superior kits available.

I noticed the F-16 too. Surely that cannot be the rather crude 80s kit?

 

Allan

Based on the number of parts, the A-4 is the much newer A-4B molded and released under the current Hornby regime. It’s not perfect, but it is a lot better than the original 60s era kit.

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1 hour ago, Albeback52 said:

They probably would. I suspect (but hope I am wrong) that Jester's A-4 might be the same ancient A-4 that appeared in this guise before. The Top Gun F-14 is presumably the original 1972 kit too?

Why release them (and the "MiG-28") when there are far superior kits available.

I noticed the F-16 too. Surely that cannot be the rather crude 80s kit?

 

Allan

If the parts count of 116 is correct, we can safely rule that out. It would take four or even five of that ancient kit make up that many parts. The part counts for all the other Top Gun kits exactly match those for Airfix kits, all old molds except for the Mustang - and with the suspected F/A-18 kit being wholly inappropriate for a Super Hornet.

 

So what is Jester's A-4? The obvious choice would be the current A-4B/Q mold, on the basis that it looks "close enough". But that has "only" 70 - 75 parts, including some unused. Either the parts count is wrong, or it's someone else's mold, possibly (hopefully!) Fujimi. One thing is for sure: I'm not going to buy it unless I can look inside the box first, or someone else on the Internet already has ...

 

And yes, it's the old F-16 kit. It's got the same parts count (81), and even the same TERs + Mavericks underwing. It's just a re-boxing of the starter kit from last year (A55312). I've had the original kit for more years than I care to remember, and still not built it.

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24 minutes ago, klr said:

Either the parts count is wrong, or it's someone else's mold, possibly (hopefully!) Fujimi.

The A-4s in the original Top Gun movie were Fs without the avionics hump. The Fujimi kit is still the best available in 1/72 of this variant. We can only hope that Airfix has decided to rebox it for this release.

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23 minutes ago, VMA131Marine said:

The A-4s in the original Top Gun movie were Fs without the avionics hump. The Fujimi kit is still the best available in 1/72 of this variant. We can only hope that Airfix has decided to rebox it for this release.

That's exactly the version I'm thinking of. I have two of the very similar "Blue Angels" kit, which also has parts for the TA-4J. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw them on sale second-hand. To be prised from my cold, dead fingers ...

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Stupid question i know, but are the paperback copies of these free? I saw a few of them on the shelf in the magazine section of WHSmiths this morning, but although they had a barcode on them, there was no price clearly marked and im not one for picking up stuff without knowing how much it will be! 

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22 hours ago, Work In Progress said:

They generally go for anything in the region of £150-180 in the secondary market so it;s worth stocking up...

I took the contents out of the box in a shop I worked in and asked people what they would give me for it. I got no offers over 20 notes. Amazing what a big box does.

 

Same with those large scale spits, For sale all over the place for around  25 euros. 

 

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20 minutes ago, Kushan_Farsight said:

Stupid question i know, but are the paperback copies of these free? I saw a few of them on the shelf in the magazine section of WHSmiths this morning, but although they had a barcode on them, there was no price clearly marked and im not one for picking up stuff without knowing how much it will be! 

They are on sale on the Airfix website for £8.99 so I would imagine WHSmiths would be selling them at the same price (or perhaps discounted) but not free.

 

Dave

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I share the misgivings about putting old tat into boxes designed to lure non-modellers in. I think that killed the hobby for my son many years ago (old Airfix Harrier GR3 kit if you are wondering). I also wonder what the "beginners" kits are going to hold in store...

 

BUT

 

I've now seen five shots of the CAD for the new Beaufort and it does look good! I did a lot of research on both details and shape for my Airfrog Frankenbuild last year, and have to say that the Airfix one looks spot on. Still don't regret doing the Frankenbuild though, it was good fun. Well done Airfix for that one - I hope it flies off the shelves.

 

Regards,

Adrian

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1 hour ago, Kushan_Farsight said:

Stupid question i know, but are the paperback copies of these free? I saw a few of them on the shelf in the magazine section of WHSmiths this morning, but although they had a barcode on them, there was no price clearly marked

Although I have not seen anything online for the last few years there has been a tie-in with AMW magazine. A discount for buying both the Mag' an the Catalogue. If so this may be a repeat the issues last year.

 

one - Catalogue goes on sale at full price and people might by it

two - AMW + Catalogue in stock but WH's computer says the start date for the promotion has not arrived. You pay full price for the Mag' and Catalogue

three - promotion starts and you get the discount

four - the catalogue remain on show with the next month's Mag and you pay full price for both

 

This was certainly the case in our local area last year,

 

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I think we can separate these Top Gun kits into two categories. First the F-14, F-5 and A4, which are most likely Airfix's old tooling rereleased. The second category contains the Mustang and the Super Hornet which were both listed as "New Tool" (they don't anymore) and have the new film branding. Presumably the Mustang is the newish Airfix kit maybe with new parts or just new decals (the New Tool logo was just a mistake?) and the Hornet is someone else's tooling. The idea that it could be Airfix's old Hornet masquerading as a Super Hornet is also possible, but that would give the impression that Airfix either don't know there different aircraft or don't care about their recently improved reputation. Time will tell (currently Spring 2020).

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I found out, that there is more renders and camouflage schemes posted today on Airfix site.

 

For example  Hawk 100

a03073a_2__95982.1578410585.520.520.jpg?

It wasn't there yesterday.

 

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Just now, Botan said:

I found out, that there is more renders and camouflage schemes posted today on Airfix site.

 

For example  Hawk 100

a03073a_2__95982.1578410585.520.520.jpg?

It wasn't there yesterday.

 

Nice! Like the camouflage

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