Scale Aviation Modeller International — February 2018

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12 Augsburg’s Early Eagles

AMG’s 1/48 Messerschmitt

Bf.109A by Jay Blakemore

Something borrowed, something new,

something old, and something blue!

N

o, I am not attending

a wedding, just

Spielwarenmesse (the

Nuremberg International Toy Fair),

the world’s largest trade fair for toys,

hobbies, and games, which takes

over the Bavarian city of Nuremberg

for four days every year. The size

of this event cannot be stressed

enough; it is truly staggering.

Some numbers: 73,000 visitors

will attend the event, to view over

2,850 stands with over a million

products, on display in 15 halls.

Our hobby, combined with

assembled metal cars and

aircraft, takes up just a third of

one hall, but even then, after a

couple of days wandering the

halls I still keep finding new

models that I have missed!

So why the title of

this piece, you ask?

Every year we will see a couple

of hundred new aircraft releases

announced at the show. Some of

these will be old kits, released

with new decals, although this

is now becoming increasingly

rare, as many manufacturers

are retiring their older kits for

all new-tooled examples (with

the exception of Hasegawa!)

An increasing trend is to borrow

kits from other manufacturers.

Revell is the master of this,

with Eduard, Hasegawa, ICM,

and Zvezda all getting a wider

distribution in Revell boxes. And of

course, Eduard are also very good

at releasing limited runs based

on kits from Academy, Hasegawa,

and AMK, and then adding etched

brass, resin, and new decals to

make good kits outstanding.

But it is the new kits that always

gets me excited. As I write this in

early January, there are already

rumours surfacing as to what

will be announced at the show,

and if even half of these are true

we are in for another great year.

So is there any need to be blue

about the future of our hobby?

Last year, at the suggestion of

a reader, we introduced the Just

Landed section to the magazine,

where you can find all of the kits

that have been released in the

preceding months. When this was

suggested I thought, “Oh, that

will be easy to do, just a case of

trawling through manufacturers’

and retailers’ websites, and maybe

I’ll get twenty or thirty new

aircraft kits a month. That might

take up a corner of the magazine.“

How wrong I was! This

feature now regularly takes

up a whole page, and since we

started it, we have featured

over a thousand new kits!

So there really is no need

to be blue, certainly not if the

investment manufacturers are

putting into our hobby is anything

to go by. I am sure 2018 is going

to be another bumper year, and in

next month’s issue, we will feature

all the new announcements I

can find from Nuremberg.

Will we finally get a new-tool

B-17 or B-24 in 1/48 scale? Will the

rumoured new announcement

from Wingnut Wings be a

Fokker Triplane or Razor?

Who knows, but whatever is

announced I am sure there will

be something for us all with the

WOW factor. So let’s not be blue

and look forward to something

new, old, or borrowed in 2018.

David Francis, Editor

[email protected]

26 Fleet Air Arm Supremo Fulmar

Special Hobby 1/48 Fairey Fulmar

MK.I/MK.II “Over the Mediterranean

and Indian Ocean” by Huw Morgan

4 • FEBRUARY 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

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Scale Aviation Modeller International

February 2018 • Volume 24 • Issue 2

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