The (currently) Unsung Heroes

[MerlinJones]

I'm thinking Pegasus and Contrail, Skybirds '86 and Magna, Aeroclub and Formaplane, Merlin and Rareplanes.
I'm thinking direct input from current custodians, with reference to contemporaries, such as Freightdog, Heritage and Whirlykits.
I'm thinking SMW 2013...

[JohnRatzenberger]

Interesting thought ...

[PaulBradley]

I'm thinking you might be on to something.....

[DHDrover]

Not to mention Playcraft/Aurora!

Dai

[TomW]

I'm liking your thinking.

Regards

Tom

[mattbacon]

... it's an interesting thought, but I think it would limit participation dramatically. How many vac forms do you actually see built on this site? And it's all very well saying that it gives everyone the opportunity to try something new, but that doesn't usually work. The kits are notably less available than Classic British Stryrene, because few if any have been reissued repeatedly over the years -- it's a limited run thing. And for every Skybirds '86 Scimitar, there's a Blue Max Snipe...

My feeling is that finding an interesting collection of such kits at a reasonable price would be hard, and getting a wide range of people to build them, harder still.

YMMV, obviously... we'd have full support from Ollie, who was proposing just such a thing over the table at SMW.

bestest,
M.

[bluesteel]

An excellent idea. I have a fair amount of those in my stash and am building a vacform Hastings at the moment (although for the CC SIG). But celebrating those British companies that plugged the gaps when the mainstream wouldn't touch the subjects is a good idea in my opinion.

[MerlinJones]

... it's an interesting thought, but I think it would limit participation dramatically.

...And how many particpated in the previous displays, compared to the 1977 display?

...How many vac forms do you actually see built on this site? And it's all very well saying that it gives everyone the opportunity to try something new, but that doesn't usually work.

That's certainly not what I'd say. Compared to other makes, how many Matchbox or FROG are built on this site, particularly in step-by-step format?

...The kits are notably less available than Classic British Stryrene, because few if any have been reissued repeatedly over the years -- it's a limited run thing. And for every Skybirds '86 Scimitar, there's a Blue Max Snipe...

Rarity and relative unpopularity is part of the point, to be honest. Whilst happy with any form of styrene, or ancient resin, I really dislike vacform. That said, there are those amongst us who are more than capable and either have said kits in the Stash, or displayed within the cabinet.

...My feeling is that finding an interesting collection of such kits at a reasonable price would be hard, and getting a wide range of people to build them, harder still.

Granted, although I suppose I was thinking that those of us with the larger (unbuilt) stashes, may already have examples to hand.
Just as the boxart displays have predominantly been Airfix, perhaps styrene would predominate vacs.

...YMMV, obviously... we'd have full support from Ollie, who was proposing just such a thing over the table at SMW.

It's an idea that has been kicking around, at least since we did the Big Three. It's also a sad fact of life that, whilst the originators of such kits are still alive and kicking with us, this situation won't remain forever.

Regards,
Bruce
YMMV ?

[PaulBradley]

"Your Milage May Vary."

I have a few of these limited run kits in the stash and could do two or three, or even offer up one or two for others to tackle.

Aeroclub Avro Anson C.19 - the old one with vacform fuselage

Blue Max Snipe - to 1/48, this one I've already started

Maintrack Supermarine Type 525 - this is a vacform I'd offer up for someone else to do

Merlin Models Hawker Hart - a "Penguin Replica"

Pegasus Supermarine Spiteful F.14

Skybirds 86 Supermarine Scimitar - thi sdone looks to be a bit of a challenge, but I'm up for it.


The idea has potential, but we'll all need to step up to make the sort of display we are used to.

[MerlinJones]

Actually, I wasn't (initially) thinking about displays, I was thinking more about those (currently) neglected kits in people's Stashes.

When I retutrned to modelling, I chanced upon a load of very cheap Pegasus kits and bought some, because the subjects interested me and...they were cheap. However, at the time, my skills were very basic. I remember giving the Hansa-Brandenberg to a dustbin, sans decals and the Curtiss Sparrowhawk the very cold shoulder.

I'm now playing with struts for the latter and am having much fun, much fun having, am I!

Also, an additional attraction is that the range of kits is finite and I'm struck by the Buils 'Em All! mentality.

Regards,
Bruce

[JohnRatzenberger]

I've got 70-some different kits from the makers listed; about 20 are 48th or larger scale, leaving 50-ish in 1/72.
All British subjects; the overwhelming majority (regardless of scale) are 'tween wars, with WW1 a distant second, and anything else rounding error.

I suspect we'd have to do some listing & weeding to get down to what kits are "Classics" so as not to have just a collection of old stuff ...

What can we do to get non-aircraft subjects in the mix ?

[PaulBradley]

Which manufacturers are you thinking about, John?

[mattbacon]

I wouldn't commit to more than one... I don't have anything in the stash except the Blue Max Snipe, and that's just horrible. If I could find a Rareplanes ?Airacuda? I might give that a go just to see what I could do with a decent for its time vac. Either way the builds would feel like hard work.

Problem is, I have no nostalgia for or real interest in these kits. Never built any as a lad; they were just names in those ads from the place whose address was "The Broadway, Bexleyheath" that used to be on the back of the Airfix Magazine in 1973. The overwhelming theme of the public reaction to ALL our previous displays has been a grinning "oh, yes, I had one of those as a boy". I doubt we'd get a lot of that...

We had 20 builders for PK-2008, 20 for Frog, 18 for the Gems, and 15 over the two box art displays. With the box art display, spacing them out is fine, but for all the others, we've had 80-100 models on the table. Barring the odd Echelon Lightning, the majority of the Unsung Heroes will be 1/72 aircraft, won't they? That tends to push more toward the 100 than the 80.

We might get Gordon Stephens or Chris Gannon to bring chunks of their personal collections, but that'd be more of a "CBK presents..." than an actual SIG display, IMHO.

The main question (which has always been my big concern whenever this idea is mentioned) is can we get 15-20 builders engaged, and can they deliver 5 or so models each given the hurdles of challenging builds and kit availability?

Bestest,
M.

[TomW]

Getting 15 -20 people all fired up over the esoteric could well be difficult as would aquisition of suitable kits in todays markets, prices have skyrocketed in the past few years especially for the likes of Contrail and Skybirds. Personally I could quite enjoy having a crack at a few of these, quick look in the stash gives me a Skybirds Scimitar and a Maintrack (Whirlybirds) Supermarine Seagull, the Seagull is earmarked for the seaplane GB and will be my first vac, if all goes well I can see myself picking a few more up at Hudds.

Its true that these kits and manufacturers dont get the coverage that the big three enjoy, but maybe such a display would draw attention from a slightly different crowd to our usual?

Regards

Tom

[JohnRatzenberger]

Which manufacturers are you thinking about, John?

I took the initial list Bruce presented & othetrs mentioned, since I'm away from my references.

Here's my stash, all airplanes. I see that a few are not British, contrary to my previous declaration, and my numbers are slightly off due to a few duplications which I fixed.

1/24
Contrail S.E.5a (not exactly a mail-in candidate)

1/48
Aeroclub BE.2c
Aeroclub BE.2e
Blue Max Airco DH-2
Blue Max Bristol F.2b Fighter
AeroClub FE.2b
Blue Max Vickers FB.5 Gun Bus
Sanger/Contrail H.P. Hampden
Aeroclub Sopwith Pup
AeroClub RE.8
Blue Max SE.5a (both eng)

Aeroclub Hawker Demon
Aeroclub Gloster Gamecock
Aeroclub Gloster Gauntlet
Aeroclub Gloster Grebe
Aeroclub A.W. Siskin IIIA
Aeroclub Avro Tutor
Contrail Vickers Wildebeest, Vincent

1/72
RarePlanes Northrup A-17/A-17A
RareJets Bell P-59B AiraComet
Contrail H.P. 42 Heracles
Contrail Blackburn Kangaroo RAF 1918
Rareplanes Boeing KC-97G Stratocruiser
Contrail Saunders-Roe S.76 Lerwick
Contrail Consolidated P2Y-2
Aeroclub Short 184
Rareplanes Lockheed PV-1 Ventura

Contrail Blackburn Baffin/Ripon
Contrail Blackburn Blackburn
Contrail Bristol Bombay
Contrail Short Calcutta/Rangoon
Aeroclub Hawker Demon
Pegasus Bristol F2B
Aeroclub Fairey Firefly IIM
Aeroclub Fairey Flycatcher
Rareplanes Hawker Fury
Aeroclub Gloster Gamecock
Pegasus Gloster Gamecock
Aeroclub Gloster Gauntlet
Pegasus Gloster Gauntlet
Contrail Fairey Gordon/Seal
Aeroclub Gloster Grebe
Merlin/Frog Gloster Grebe
Contrail H.P. Harrow
Merlin/Frog Hawker Hart
Aeroclub Hawker Hart/Audax
Aeroclub Hawker Hector
Contrail H.P. Heyford
Contrail Hawker Horsley
Contrail H.P. Hyderabd/Hinaidi
Contrail Fairey IIIF (3 kits)
Contrail Blackburn Iris III
Contrail Saro London III
Aeroclub Hawker Osprey
Merlin/Frog Hawker Osprey w/floats
Contrail Blackburn Perth
Contrail Short Rangoon/Calcutta
Contrail Supermarine Scapa
Formaplane Fairey Seafox
Contrail B.P. Overstrand/Sidestrand
Contrail Short Singapore III
Pegasus Sopwith Snipe
Contrail Supermarine Southampton
Aeroclub D.H.82 Tiger Moth
Pegasus Avro Tutor 1
Contrail Vickers Vernon (Vimy conv)
Contrail Vickers Virginia,Victoria,Valentia
Contrail Vickers Wildebeest/Vincent
Aeroclub Hawker Woodcock
Merlin/Frog Hawker Woodcock

Hmmmm, I have a stick & tissue Hart that I don't see listed, I think it's an OBK if nothing else ....

I have to agree that I wouldn't want this to be "CBK Presents..." work of others, so we'd have to get our general interest up. Perhaps better than trying to do an "unsung" display, we ought to look at being more inclusive of them in our general themes -- although I can't think of any of the above that would be good boxart subjects ....