109's, 190's and Tiger 1's

wrote

As many as the market will bear.

Same as it ever was, same as it always shall be.

Yeah. OK.

KL

Look at what shows up at a contest--lots and lots of 109s and 190s (and Tigers, I suppose, though I don't pay much attention to targets). People build them, which means people buy them, which means they are worth selling. Likewise Spitfires and P-47s and Corsairs and P-51s. Everything else in the single-engined WWII menagerie is relatively rare. I've seen three P-39s in contests in the last seven years, and one of them was mine. I've never seen a Helldiver. F4Fs, Dauntlesses, P-40s, Hurricanes, D.520s and various Macchis show up from time to time, as do Zeros, Avengers, Ju 87s and Hellcats. And that's just about it--the other stuff is really rare on the table. I sympathize, in the sense that the less-popular subjects are ones I often find interesting, but we've really been pretty well-served over the last few years in both 1/72 and

1/48: good Wyverns, Whirlwinds, Swordfish, Seirans, Rex floatplanes, Lavochkins, Yaks, and so on. There are even some nice P-39 kits, and P-63s for that matter. Where's the problem here?

Mark Schynert

Mark Schynert wrote on 4/13/05 12:23 AM:

Not at all to contradict your main point, but two years ago I built R-M's

1:48 Helldiver and decided to enter it at Noreastcon, the Region 1 contest. Wouldn't you know, there were I think three other 1:48 Helldivers on the table, at least one of them (not mine) killer beautifully built. I guess it's the exception that proves the rule.

Pip Moss I used to feel cheap 'cause I had no signature.

A while back I built the Pegasus Fokker D.XXIII (a real hair-puller, that one) and put it on the table. Ten minutes later, another one showed up right next to mine. Another time I saw two Horten twin prop flying wings of the same mark (Ho VII?). Of course, a Helldiver is a rather more significant type than either of those historically. Maybe it's just that nobody builds them in Region 9.

Mark Schynert

I like 1/32, and few if any of the less popular kits are made in that scale.....

Craig

I entered the contest once at Mallcon (Rosemont Hobby's show in Trexlertown, Pa.) with a MiG-23 conversion. I think I was the only MiG owner there. F-16s, F-4s were there in abundance.

Bill Banaszak, MFE