RELEASED - 1/72 Early Merlin Spitfire Family - IBG Guessing Game Round 2

[TheKinksFan]

When it's well known that Eduard will release 1/72 versions of their early Spitfires, there's zero chance that IBG would release same subjects. First Eduard kit will be released late this year if everything goes as planned. 

After their Gotha announcement I won't be surprised if it's again something, let's put it this way, that Mr Šulc would never ever even consider releasing. 

[Giorgio N]

Ok, I'll try to post a serious guess here... that may well be the last, I rather prefer throwing totally absurd ideas, it's more fun!

So the serious guess is.... P-47 family!

12'2" Curtiss Electric

12'2" AO Smith

3 different types of Curtiss Electric 13' propellers

13' Hamilton Standard

And IIRC a 12'2" Aeroproducts propeller was tested too

 

(of course they may well decide that the market would not be interested in a P-47 family since there are cheap kits around from Academy and Revell while Tamiya have 2 very good kits. Instead they may prefer to offer something different and less common.... in any case a P-47 family would require 7 propeller types)

Edited January 15 by Giorgio N

[352nd Fighter Group]

7 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

Ok, I'll try to post a serious guess here... that may well be the last, I rather prefer throwing totally absurd ideas, it's more fun!

So the serious guess is.... P-47 family!

12'2" Curtiss Electric

12'2" AO Smith

3 different types of Curtiss Electric 13' propellers

13' Hamilton Standard

And IIRC a 12'2" Aeroproducts propeller was tested too

 

(of course they may well decide that the market would not be interested in a P-47 family since there are cheap kits around from Academy and Revell while Tamiya have 2 very good kits. Instead they may prefer to offer something different and less common.... in any case a P-47 family would require 7 propeller types)

100% P-47 Family

[Piotr Mikolajski]

22 minutes ago, TheKinksFan said:

I won't be surprised if it's again something, let's put it this way, that Mr Šulc would never ever even consider releasing. 

 

I don't know why the opinion of the CEO of one company should be the gospel on what other companies release, especially on the issue of profitability.

 

He wrote that he would not dare release the Go 242/Go 244 family in 1/72. In so many years since the release of the Spitfire VIII/IX family in 1/48, he has not dared to release the Spitfire TR.9 either. Others have dared to release these kits in 2025.

At the same time, I don't think Airfix or IBG Models ever thought seriously about releasing a Zlin Trener family. For them it would be unprofitable, but this is the family that Eduard released.

 

Really, stop looking for some one-size-fits-all algorithm for the model market. Every company has a different view of the market, has slightly different ideas, has different fixed costs, different methods of calculating the profitability of projects and so on. If someone writes that something is unprofitable for his company, he is writing the truth - it is unprofitable for his company. It may be profitable for other manufacturers.

[JTninja]

Let the folks wishing for a new tool He-219  play 😉

 

10 variants listed on wiki, but only 7 of them were ever built. We can pretend each version had different props

 

😆

Edited January 16 by JTninja

[VMA131Marine]

I suspect the number of possible subjects expands considerably if you allow for the possibility of WWI aircraft. How many different props were used on the Sopwith Camel, or S.E.5a, or Bristol Fighter or Fokker D.VII, or the Albatros D.III series?

 

Also the Hawker Hart/Audax/Hartebeeste family would probably be a good candidate.

[Piotr Mikolajski]

1 hour ago, VMA131Marine said:

I suspect the number of possible subjects expands considerably if you allow for the possibility of WWI aircraft.

 

TBH I don't think IBG Models will ever release newly tooled WWI aircraft kit.

[Tbolt]

8 hours ago, 352nd Fighter Group said:

100% P-47 Family

 

Like I said earlier, whils that image show seven props, isn't there only five types there, so for the purpose of moulding a kit you would only need five? Unless I'm missing some subtle difference. I think there was at least nine different blade part numbers on the P-47. I would love it to be the P-47 though.

[VMA131Marine]

2 hours ago, Piotr Mikolajski said:

 

TBH I don't think IBG Models will ever release newly tooled WWI aircraft kit.

Then the number of possible subjects must be quite limited. How many different props did the Me 109G series use?

[DominikS]

7 hours ago, TheKinksFan said:

When it's well known that Eduard will release 1/72 versions of their early Spitfires, there's zero chance that IBG would release same subjects. First Eduard kit will be released late this year if everything goes as planned. 

After their Gotha announcement I won't be surprised if it's again something, let's put it this way, that Mr Šulc would never ever even consider releasing. 

As you said, if everything goes as planned. The other, more important,  thing is that this is business. No-one watches what other company is going to release. If IBG release Spitfires in the spring, they'll earn some money on the kit before Eduard.  

Or maybe this is completely different aircraft... we'll learn soon.

[JWM]

A WW2 stuff not present yet on market? I hope it will be: Set 7k, IAR-27, Kaproni-Bulgarski KB-4, KB-5, KB-6 or KB-11 or  simply AW Ensing....  If German sells better then He 116 perhaps?

Regards

J-W

[seanAF]

I asked AI and here is what I got: 

 

Boeing B-29 Superfortress.

Propeller Types:

Fixed-pitch prototypes.

Controllable-pitch during development.

Hamilton Standard constant-speed (operational).

Feathering propellers for long-range missions.

Arctic-tested designs for Alaska operations.

Composite blade retrofits post-war.

Noise-reduction blades for civilian conversions.

 

Douglas C-47 Skytrain (Military DC-3 Variant)

Propeller Types:

Fixed-pitch (early DC-3 versions).

Controllable-pitch.

Constant-speed Hamilton Standard.

Feathering propellers.

Metal vs. wooden blade tests during early years.

Ground-adjustable blades for tropical and arctic operations.

High-altitude optimization variants.

 

Avro Lancaster

Propeller Types:

Fixed-pitch prototypes.

Controllable-pitch (de Havilland and Rotol).

Feathering propellers for mission survivability.

Wooden and metal blade tests for efficiency.

Constant-speed propellers in main operational variants.

Arctic-tested designs for cold-weather missions.

Experimental high-altitude optimized blades.

 

I'd love to see it be a B-29

Edited January 16 by seanAF

[Giorgio N]

6 hours ago, Tbolt said:

 

Like I said earlier, whils that image show seven props, isn't there only five types there, so for the purpose of moulding a kit you would only need five? Unless I'm missing some subtle difference. I think there was at least nine different blade part numbers on the P-47. I would love it to be the P-47 though.

 

Yes, in some cases they were just small or very small differences. In the case of the AO Smith type I even think they just made the blades for Curtiss Electric rather than entire propellers....

The thing is that really this kind of guess-the-plane games from model companies are just that, a fun game. A game where they trickle down hints to keep us modellers interested in their forthcoming new product so it makes sense to be cryptic, search tiny details and drop hints that must be dissected to find something, it just adds to the speculation.

Now I came to the P-47 idea just because I had somewhere in my mind that the Thunderbolt used more propeller types that most think but there were other aircraft types with 7 or more propeller types, like the Spitfire. Guess that the Bf.109 line may have also used a similar number of propellers but I don't know 109s enough to comment on this. And there could be several more...

So I'd say the P-47 is at the moment as likely a guess as many others (but I'd be pretty happy with it). Of course tomorrow we may get a new hint pointing at a 2-engined aircraft and my guess would suddenly be totally wrong.

 

Or we may find that the new kit will be of an aircraft with more than 2 engines... in that case I'll throw my next weird and completely wrong but funny guess: a Kalinin K-7 ! That ended up with 7 engines, so one propeller per engine. Fits perfectly the information we have til today ! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

(Yes, there are 7 emojis.. one per each propeller of the hint...)

[Steve N]

How about a P-38 Lightning family?  I'm not sure how many different types of props it used during its production life, but all U.S. versions had counter-rotating propellers, so three different types would account for six, and the P.322 Lightning I built for the British had engines that rotated in same direction, so they would only use one, which adds up to seven.  

 

SN

[352nd Fighter Group]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 16 by 352nd Fighter Group
remove a word

[Dennis_C]

Now I'm reading about Me-323 and looks like that used different types of Gnome-Rhone and Jumo engines, some had four engines rather than six and there were two- and three-bladed propellers. I wonder if combined - does that give seven different propellers in total? Have you ever seen a kit with 42 different propellers in one box?

Edited January 16 by Dennis_C

[Dennis_C]

One more idea. Could it all of a sudden be a Bell 204/205/212/214/412/Huye/Iroquois/Venom/Griffon/whatever family? 

[TheKinksFan]

31 minutes ago, Dennis_C said:

Now I'm reading about Me-323

So you are saying that once they start making cargo planes they just can't stop 😋

[GioCare]

3 minutes ago, TheKinksFan said:

So you are saying that once they start making cargo planes they just can't stop 😋

a new dangerous pandemia?!😁 

[12by12]

Well, you could imagine a P-47 series from B to N not excluding the prototype J and you might need several props.  But say you want to do some schemes from photos, are you really going  to, or even be able to, get the prop version right. Of course you must distinguish between narrow and paddle blades, and the different hubs, but really? 

 

Whereas if you were doing the Spitfire from K5054 to Seafire 47, you just must do at least seven props. Must. And that's the only type where that applies. Now IBG may have a type in mind where they MAY do seven props but I can't see that they must.

 

But I could be wrong and ignorant of the type.

[Piotr Mikolajski]

6 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

Then the number of possible subjects must be quite limited. How many different props did the Me 109G series use?

 

This is not the right direction 

This project was started when the upcoming Bf 109FGK series from Eduard was already known about.

[Dennis_C]

49 minutes ago, TheKinksFan said:

So you are saying that once they start making cargo planes they just can't stop 😋

Luftwaffe uber-cargo machines. There is also Ar-232 to continue. Hope they do an ultimate Ju-52 before they find a medicine to recover.

Edited January 16 by Dennis_C

[steh2o]

I sincerely hope that the seven different propeller types come out better than IBG's own Fw190D's ones!!!😂

 

[DominikS]

48 minutes ago, Piotr Mikolajski said:

 

This is not the right direction 

This project was started when the upcoming Bf 109FGK series from Eduard was already known about.

So which is right one? Allied or Axis?

[Dennis_C]

I think it might be a very cool project - make say several dozens of different propellers in 1/72 - from WWI wooden props to six-bladed C-130 and twinned supersonic Tu-95MS ones - put them into a frame and under the glass and hang it on the wall. Hmmm... a kit containing a nice set of seven propellers could be an excellent donor!

Edited January 16 by Dennis_C