I want something else, how about you?

There is a 1/32 F-16XL on the market. The VSTOL Mig-21 would be very interesting. I have conversion plans from a very old FSM for a compound delta Mig-21 research plane. It was used to test the viablity of the wing they adopted for their SST airliner. Cool looking bird. I also want to build the NF-104 Starfighter. With experimentals the list goes on and on!

Who makes that 1/32 F-16 XL?

The only F-16 XL kits I'm familiar with are Monogram's old 1/72 kit and a somewhat newer 1/144 kit put out by Airfix.

Kangnam is the companys name. They have a 1/32 F-16A, F-16XL, and a F-5E. They can be purchased at Great Models but I just checked the site and the F-16XL is currently out of stock.

I just got in the mail a pair of videotapes of the TV show "Monster Garage" from my friend in Hawaii. I'm surprised I haven't (yet) heard a clamoring for kits of the unusual vehicles featured therein. Not to mention those beautiful custom motorcycles like the one Jesse James built for Shaquille O'neal.

Hey Jim,

I was just thinking how cool it would be if some of those "Monster" vehicles could be kitted, myself. That is an awesome show. I really liked the Mini/snowmobile one.

Ray

Sounds like scratchbuild/modification time! Gotta check the spares box. :) - -Ed

I don't know, I think civilian aircraft and equipment need to stay OUT of the hobby, thanx! I live near an airport, so I see civilian aircraft ALL THE TIME. However, I pretty much NEVER see military aircraft(save for when I'm visiting my dad, who's in Naval Aviation)! Civilian aircraft are a dime-a-dozen, this is not so for military aircraft! Keep the wimpy little civilian junks out of such a fine hobby as making models!

However, I DO agree that there needs to be more variety! WWII is OVER! It's done! Gone with the wind, as it were! Who needs another BF-109, or Mitsubishi Zero? Why can't we model more recent conflicts? Even Vietnam still doesn't get that much coverage! It's almost like the only wars the model companies ever found worthy of making models for were WWII and the Gulf War! What gives? I'd love to see some 1/144 scale figures and vehicles(as well as ships, too!) also. Honestly! It wouldn't be THAT hard to make a detailed 1/144 scale figure! Alot of my RPG minis are around 1/170 scale, and they have HUGE amounts of details, including faces! And when was the last time you saw a good "what if?" model, outside of Sci-Fi? Wouldn't it be cool to think of what a B-52 would look like as an Electronic Warfare platform? Jammers all over the place! And where's my Confederate Infantry? There needs to be more model kits for the War of Northern Agression! And howsabout the Spanish-American war? Anyone see any kits of the rough-riders? Heck, even napoleonic kits have gotten rare in the past few years!
There's plenty of military kits that COULD be made, we don't need to use civilian crud! It just seems the model-companies don't want to tap into the sheer mass of un-kitted military equip out there!

Well, civilian aviation is like the military stuff, it has it's eras and ages and whats a dime a dozen now is a classic tomorrow. I live on an approach path to the local international airport and I never get tired of seeing things come in. Sometimes its nothing but Airbusses, but theres nothing wrong with them.

As for civilian classics, there was a time when the sky was crawling with Beech 18's, they're a rarity now, same can be said of DC-3s.

People don't travel in C-130s and C-5s. The weekend flying club doesn't have F-15s on its register. What kind of aircraft has a more frequent effect on the population at large ?(that is of course presuming your country isn't being bombed)

More pilots have seen the inside of a Cessna 172 as their training platform than a T-38. Is it that difficult for you to believe that the Cessna could be as near and dear to a civil pilot's heart as the familiarity of the T-38 is to the military pilot?


Both military and civilian aircraft have their place, just because you don't appreciate one doesn't mean that it shouldn't be there for someone else who can.

Nobody's forcing you to buy what you don't want, but for those of us who have a want for what you don't, the option should be there for us.

Just thought I would bring this back to the top again. Hopefully our newer members will take some time to read it if they haven't already.

Hey Tech..."civilian junks"? (sniff,sniff) boy that one cut like a knife. Remember, variety is not a bad thing, Even if it's not something your interested in.

Darren

I'd like to get a Be-12 Mail and a Ka-25 Hormone in 1/48th scale. Trumpeter took a kit off my wish list when they came out with the 1/72nd Tu-95 Bear. Now if only I can get an updated T-62, Chieftain and a Centurion, I'd be a happier modeller.

Amen Darren, There is room for every subject in this hobby. Build what you like and have fun!

Hey Darren and Woody, Thanks for the backup on the civilian stuff.

Civilian flying has just as many colourful characters and stories as military aviation does. To me, a story about a bush pilot in the far North reaches of Canada in a DeHavilland Beaver (ONE piston engine and more history behind it than most WWII stuff can claim) flying food, medicine and various other necesities of life into some far flung arctic community unreachable by any other means than air. Flying through atmospheric conditions that would keep most military things grounded, is just as good a story as the one about bringing that one straggling, heavily shot up Lancaster back over the channel against every odd in the book.

There's lots of stuff military that hasn't been covered, I'd like to see more Spanish Civil War stuff, when it comes to Vietnam, I'd like to see more of the Australian Military hardware represented.

The truth is, when you say: "B-52 Stratofortress", "Avro Lancaster", "B-17 Flying Fortress", "Supermarine Spitfire", "F-86 Sabre".... More people know what you're talking about and can see it in their heads than when you say: "DeHavilland Beaver", "Norduyn Norseman", "Fairchild Metro", "beech King Air", "Piper Apache"... Kind of sad to my mind that such is the case.

We spend a lot of time modeling the fighters of the great war aces, celebrating their daring and risk taking, but civilian pilots take just as many risks and often face them on a much more frequent basis.

When you hear the stories of the pilots that flew humanitarian missions in remote areas of the Canadian or European Arctic regions, the Australian Outback, heavy jungles of Asia and South America... To marvel at their ingenuity to keep themselves and their machines going, wondering how they made it to fly another day. Thats as good as any war story in my books.

Did you know that Australia's Qantas airline started with two guys and one biplane? You'd never guess that by looking at the airline now.

By the way, anybody know of a Piper Apache in 1/72 or 1/48?

kaelu:
I'll agree with you on the BE-12 in 1/48, that'd be great. An Antonov AN-2 Colt would also be great in 1/48 (oh, make sure its got Aeroflot livery on the decal sheet! ;-) )

A Piper Apache? I don't recall ever seeing a model of one. Boy would that be nice. Then you could convert it in to an Aztec or a Geronimo.

How about A Piper Navajo, Chieftain or Cheyenne? There are tons of them flying for small airlines doing
some "Island hopping". Charter and cargo outfits use them as well.

Twin Otters are everywhere too. I sure would like to see that in kit form. A skydiving diorama would be cool.

What about a Cessna 195? One of the sexiest aircraft out of the Cessna stable. The entire radial engine and mount are hinged. Remove a couple of bolts and the assembly swings away from the firewall. What an opportunity to do some proper detailing to an engine.

Big scale would be nice, A 1/24 scale Beech Staggerwing or any other civilian aircraft would be great.

I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Darren

I think people tend to build the planes that have had a lot of stories told of their exploits. What the military builder should remember is a lot of civilian A/C were pressed into military service, like the Beech Model 17 Stagger Wing. Maybe these missions weren't as glamorous as say a Memphis Belle sortie, but they are an interesting part of history. If you support diversity you are frequently supporting your self.

Darren:

A 1/24 Beech 17 would be awesome.

On the matter of the Twin Otter, You may still be able to get your hands on the old Matchbox 1/72 kit of it. It was a respectable and certainly workable kit that came with some nice options like wheel, ski or float landing gear and both short and long nose cones. It came with Canadian military markings and a civilian option, Aurigney if I recall correctly.

Modelcraft has a 1/72 Twin otter new to their catalog, I don't know if its a new tooling or the old matchbox, but the picture of the box art shows it in Norontair markings with that nice stylized loon motif on the fuselage sides.

If you get your hands on either kit, I've slapped three photos of Canadian military "Twotters" in the aircraft reference photo section of the free photo gallery RonUSMC is offering in General Modeling Discussion forum. Detail speaking, there isn't a whole lot of difference between between most civilian Twin Otters and the Canadian Military ones, so if you ever wanted to detail one, those photos might help you.

Woody:
You're so right about civilian aircraft being pressed into military service.
The Beech 17 is just one, others include:

The Dakota, she was the DC-3 before she was the C-47.
Beech 18s became C-45s
The Beaver and the Norseman also got militarized.
The Pilatus Porter, still a treat to see one lift off, military or civilian.

Airliners have always found a way to get into uniform, even today.

VC-10s and Lockheed Tristars that once flew passengers soldier on with the RAF as tankers.

The DC-10 does the same tanking duty for the USAF and I think a few others now

But the major tip of the hat has to go to the 707. Oh the things she's been put through when in uniform, the KC-135 was just the begining. She's been the basis for a series of special mission aircraft that have used the entire alphabet and then some in prefix and suffix letters to tell them all apart:

E-3, E-6, E-8, KC-135, RC-135, NC-135, EC-135, VC-135..... She's still the old 707 under it all and being the 707 is all she needs to be to be a beauty in my books.

Coming from a predominately sales / marketing background, I may be able to give a little insight as to why model manufacturers sell what they do.

In any given week, hundreds of Tigers, Corsairs, Bf-109's, Shermans, Star Trek, and Ferrari models are being sold at any given location. For the most part, "obscure" or "special interest" kits are left by the wayside. Why? Because they don't sell as well. Sure, there's a nitch market for them, but if you ran a model company, which is more appealing: spending thousands of dollars on research and development for a kit that will only sell to a select audience, or spend the same amount (or less, depending on the popularity of the subject) for a kit that will sell thousands per week? Profit margins dictate any industry, including modelling. Granted, it would be nice if there were more companies like Heller and others that specialized in these "hard-to-find" subjects, but it just isn't good for the bottom line of the company. There are times that a manufacturer actually does listen to the masses and puts out a new kit that is far removed from the norm. The key word, however, is masses. In order for a company to spend the extra time and production space to create a new die, there has to be a strong demand for the subject matter.

Sorry to stray of the subject (or back onto it?) These are jusy my observations, and of course, I may be wrong.

demono69

Thats fair commentary, but it still doesn't explain how an injection molded 1/48 A-5 Vigilante has dodged existence for so long despite being able to float like a drop of oil on water for so many years on so many modelers wish lists.

Yes, Tiger tanks, ME-109s, Spitfires are the money makers for the industry and perhaps its that way because of what gets glorified and what gets bypassed in the history books (Note my commentary on the heroes of bush flying compared to the heroes of war flying)

I don't shy away from the military stuff, but so many significant stages in history were carried out in peacetime with machines that never had gun or a bomb strapped to them, operated by people who never got anybody else's blood on their hands.

Personally, I don't think we're seeing the full picture if we judje a vehicle's significance by the amount of destruction it can rain down on someone else. Celebrate the warrior when right to do so, but dont forget the builder, the rescuer, the lawkeepers and all those others that somehow we take for granted until we need them, and despite us taking them for granted, they still come through for us everytime. Bless every one of them.

Well spoken, Kevan. I completely agree.

demono69

Keeping on the matter of civilian subjects...

I was in my local hobby shop the other day and saw a boat model in a rather large box, can't recall the scale.

Its a Revell kit, entitled simply "The Firefighter". Its a firefighting boat generally similar to some pictures I've seen of New York Fire Department boats.

Does anybody know something about this kit? does it represent a specific make and model of boat from a certain era, or is it generalized and vague like the kit's title.

Not sure if I'll throw the money at it, I'd like to know more about it before I give it further consideration.

Just me peaking in to see what all the fuss is about (168 replies????)

Now throwing water baloon and running for cover....


Murray.

Be careful with that water balloon when I'm still on the fire fighting boat, you might get more in return than you bargained for, hope you brought a towel! :-)

Seriously though, I'm surprized my little rant for change and diversity in kit subject matter ballooed as it did. It's mind boggling to think so many of you shared these sentiments.

My forum doesn't get quite the action it did when it was new, but the few times I thought it was gone, it came back up for air. Good to know nobody forgot it.

Any of you civil aviation builders know if the Novo/Frog kit of the 707-321 is any good? I have quit a few of them and might try to build one, but not if it has problems.

My only experince with Novo/Frog kits was an old 1/72 Fairey Firefly.

The Frog moldings were good and fit wasn't bad.

The Novo reissue was questionable on the moldings, looked like the mold might have been seriously deteriorated by the time they did it. Or, it could have been an overage of mold release that got in the way of sharp moldings, the parts were slippery like wet soap when I took them out of the box. No decals either.

I'd say if its the Frog release, expect the usual things with a kit of its era. If its typical Novo, take off the gloves and come out swingin' cuz yer' in for a fight!

I got a little bit of good news for Upnorth and the others clamoring for heavy equipment models such as tractors and the like: A few weeks ago, I was at a model kit expo in Fullerton, California and one vendor had these kits:

International Paystar 5000 Cement Mixer

John Deere 4430 Tractor

John Deere 310 Backhoe Loader

John Deere Bulldozer

They were all AMT kits in 1/25 scale. I don't know if they were of recent production or if they'd been in someone's garage for umpteen years, but there's at least a few kits of agricultural and construction equipment. If you can, try hitting one of the kit expos; particularly the ones featuring collectible kits (if you can build a collector's item without cringing). The kit expos seem to have a more eclectic selection than the hobby shops; although I didn't buy the kits mentioned in this post, I did find something different: Fujimi's Fiat Barchetta and a reissue of Glencoe's UFO. Now if I could find a second kit of the UFO, I could convert them both into futuristic "air cars," paint the Barchetta red and put them into a "Red Barchetta" (as in the Rush song) diorama. (But don't ask when I'll build it; it might be years.)

Jim, I love that song! What a cool idea for a diorama. FIGHT THE MOTOR LAW

Hi Upnorth i agree totaly and i pesonaly think we need another F16 kit like i need a dose of pubic lice NO THANKS as for my wants list the only things on it at the moment are a large scale prefferably 1/24 de havilland chipmunk and a 1/18 scale landrover prefferably a multikit type with different versions...thanks for a great thread..Gregers

A 1/24 Chipmunk would be good. Personally I'd like to see a 1/24 Westland Lysander. Can you imagine the sort of detail you could cram into the cockpit and see through that greenhouse of a canopy when it was done?!

I know that AMT has made a few heavy industry and agricultural kits, their Caterpillar Bulldozer has been reissued a couple of times and I saw someone really go to town on detailing their Payhauler mine dumptruck by AMT.

The problem is that I've never gotten along well with AMT kits I haven't built one in years. I often find their quality to be inconsistent from one kit to the next, sometimes the scale can be off by quite a bit and I've never been able to get AMT decals to stick to anything, model or otherwise.

The "Red Barchetta" diorama does sound awesome, not my favorite Rush song of all time, but the idea is great. Good luck on it.

Does anybody know anything about that Revell firefighting boat kit I mentioned a couple of posts back?

Basically just a Land Rover series 3 109 or a Defender 110 in a large scale.. Thats all..

Those are good wants and totally reasonable in my estimation.

Revell Germany has a decent military Land Rover 3 in 1/35 (with the exception of an easily fixed misdirection in the exhaust pipe). I shouldn't think it would be that difficult for them to bring it up to say, 1/12 or something like that.

QUOTE: Originally posted by upnorth A 1/24 Chipmunk would be good. Personally I'd like to see a 1/24 Westland Lysander. Can you imagine the sort of detail you could cram into the cockpit and see through that greenhouse of a canopy when it was done?! I know that AMT has made a few heavy industry and agricultural kits, their Caterpillar Bulldozer has been reissued a couple of times and I saw someone really go to town on detailing their Payhauler mine dumptruck by AMT. The problem is that I've never gotten along well with AMT kits I haven't built one in years. I often find their quality to be inconsistent from one kit to the next, sometimes the scale can be off by quite a bit and I've never been able to get AMT decals to stick to anything, model or otherwise. The "Red Barchetta" diorama does sound awesome, not my favorite Rush song of all time, but the idea is great. Good luck on it. Does anybody know anything about that Revell firefighting boat kit I mentioned a couple of posts back?

Thanks, Upnorth. Again, don't know when I'll get around to building "Red Barchetta;" it might be years, but I think it would be a fun project. (And I just thought of a new post about dioramas while posting this message!)