Origin of the Starfix Bell UH-1B

[splash]

I think I have discovered the origins of the Starfix 1/48 Bell UH11B HUEYCOBRA.

A friend of mine had given me an Aurora 1/48 scale Bell UH-1B HUEY'COPTER to build, so when the Starfix kit that I won on eBay for £6 arrived in the post, I thought I would compare the two.

To my surprise although the Aurora kit has an open rear door and rap around windshield, when you place the two halves from the Starfix kit and Aurora kit they both match perfectly, even the locating lugs and panel lines match.

When you compare the cockpit floor you can see Starfix have copied the centre console and every rivet on the floor even the pilot has been roughly copied.

In the photos below the Starfix kit is the lighter green above or to the left of the darker Aurora parts.

So if you want to build a cheap retro 60's kit the Starfix kit might be a good option and that's not something I thought I would hear myself saying.

[JamesPerrin]

Pretty conclusive.

[general rocket]

Coincidence, surely..............who mentioned Kitech?

[SJPONeill]

Pretty sure this same kit also passed through the Academy stable in the late 80s when they were just starting up...

[PaulBradley]

Boy, everyone was stealing from Aurora back in the day...!

[splash]

Do you think these kits were plagiarised or authorised like when Frog sold its moulds to Nova?

[PaulBradley]

I don't think international copyright law was as rigidly enforced back then!

[Dazzled]

I don't think international copyright law was as rigidly enforced back then!

Certainly not in Israel at the time.

Did a little digging and found this.

http://www.modelkitcollecting.com/topic203.html

It gives some info on the origins of Starfix kits.

[splash]

Cheers Dazz that made good reading and confirmed my theory.

Having looked further at the two kits, it's interesting to note that when it comes to the missile fit, Aurora got it right with the size of the SS11 missiles and the missile pylon that the missiles hang off, not like the far to small missiles that Starfix would have you believe sit on top of just a pole.

Aurora also give you two nice cabin machine guns with a crewman manning one of them.

[jssel]

Thanks for this Splash. Informative.

[coptermech]

Now you've gone and done it!!!....made me pick up a Starfix P-51on evilbay....at least it was only $5.26 with shipping, so not a big loss there

[ZacYates]

If only they'd copied the AH-56 Cheyenne, too!

This is very interesting to see, I'd never have thought Starfix would be an option.

[Eric Mc]

Do you think these kits were plagiarised or authorised like when Frog sold its moulds to Nova?

A slight clarification, FROG actually didn't really "sell" its molds to Novo. Frog's owners *DunbyCombex Mark - Rovex") went into receivership and the Frog element was disposed of by the appointed receiver. They actually couldn't find a buyer so the British government (it was Labour at the time - 1976) brokered a deal with the Soviet Union government who agreed to "buy" the moulds of all the non- World War 2 Axis powers models.

The Soviet Union did not have enough hard currency to pay for the moulds so an arrangement was made where a new UK based company, named "Novo", was set up to rebox and repackage the old Frog kits. That is why these genuine Novo models are in boxes which are effectively identical to the Frog boxes - to the point that the art work and instructions are identical.

Kits sold under the Novo brand generated the hard currency to settle the agreed amount with the receiver. Once these agreed amounts for each mould had been cleared, production under the Novo brand ceased. I don't think any Novo kits appeared after 1982.

After that, the only way to get Soviet moulded (and very inferior) versions of the old Frog models was to see what came out of the Soviet Union (often by very circuitous routes).

It's a fascinating and slightly odd period in model production history.

[gbrwn56]

A great insight as to what happened, thank you.

[Eric Mc]

I was around when all this was happening. Back then there was no specific scale aircraft model magazines so I was relying on the fortnightly Aviation News newspaper (printed and owned by Alan Hall) to keep me informed of developments. Because Alan Hall was a significant model builder, Aviation News had quite a good model content. Indeed, it was the springboard to Scale Aircraft Modelling.