Aviation Usk - Closed

I haven't purchased anything from the new owners. I kept hearing here that they were somewhat slower than Uncle Tom. OTOH, there's one more great memory that only exists in the mind.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

I tried to order from them one time - it quickly became a Keystone Kops routine. Unfailingly polite, but hapless. Too bad.

BTW, if Great Models did buy them they should change the Great Models link on the site because it connects one to Squadron. It looks from the website that MMD bought almost all the inventory.

Art

Those were the days !

At least I got a lot of engins n things stuff from them. That and some odd eastern european resin kit's. Their catalog was ALWAYS interesting reading.

They were always nice on the phone, and always seemed to have what I wanted in stock.

Never ordered from the new owner (s) hopefully great models will keep their wide range of inventory going.

Allan

I learned the hard way that if they didn't have it, then they weren't going out of the way to get it!

Most of the hard to get aviation stuff can be had from Aeroclub these days.

That said, I liked the Wings48 vacs that I got from them.

Keith Walker

Back in the late 80's I got a fair amount of resin Engines 'n' Things from them as well; some other items two. Back then it was strictly a telephone call to order from the paper flier they mailed out several times per year. In addition to listing items for sale, the pamphlet was also interspersed with Tom's Uskian humor and political quips. They definitely were as bit slow in getting orders out but they were nice people and I enjoyed doing business with them. Tom was also a stamp collector and, when I was deployed to the (first) Gulf War, I got a set of Kuwaiti stamps and sent them to him. I guess time marches. I haven't bought anything from them in quite some time but I am still sad to see them leave the modeling scene.

That was back when Usk was actually located in Usk Washington (remember the time change, when it's 8' oclock in New York it's 1956 in Usk!). I understand there was a move to new owners in Nebraska several years ago which is the once of recent demise. The fliers were great from Tom and while you often waited a long time for some things they usually showed up. Sometimes long after you forgot you ordered it so it was kinda fun. I still have a 1/72 vac FF-1 from a little moulder in Canada that I'm looking forward to.

Allen

That little quirk of sending things long after you ordered them came in handy once. I had ordered the B-32 book sometime early in the year and I had forgotten it. In the following autumn this package showed up and I couldn't figure out what it was. It surely picked up my spirits when I figured out what it was as I was going through some tough times then.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

FYI, Wings vacforms pop up on eBay occasionally. That's how I bought my Yak-38 -can't remember the seller's name right now. IIRC the deal went smooth.

HTH Bonehammer

I ordered some times from the "old" Aviation Usk (when it was still in Usk) years ago. Nice stuff and nice people, even if a bit slow and ordering from overseas wasn't exactly cheap. But they had a lot of strange and unusual items you couldn't find in any other place.

And I liked Unca Tom humor, do you remember the letter from the president of the scale plastic pilots association that was in their catalogue? :))

Those of us living in the Spokane Washington area had a great time at the original Aviation Usk sorta semi serious annual chili feed and modeling contest held at the Usk Civic Center in the Fall......

Dropped a lotta dough on some pretty unusual items over the years - and like others, often waited so long for my mail orders that I had forgotten having made the order.

Unless Great Models Webstore has improved it's mail order policies, I can see that they would be the most worthy to assume the "You wait - you'll get - maybe?" philosophy pioneered by Tom and the crew at the original Aviation Usk....but perhaps without the pentecostal humor?

Rick Fluke Western Montana