sanger CG4A wacol glider

That was an early kit under the Sutcliffe label, later Contrail and now Sanger.

Crude would be a polite description.

Have you tried the old but very nice Italeri injection molded kit?

Tom

ISTR there's a balsa & tissue CG-4 in about 1/32 scale available from Zenith Aviation Books.

As I remember it, Zenith Aviation is a subsidiary of Motorbooks in Minneapolis. Try:

hth

The Keeper (of too much crap)

Didn't someone just announce a new release in 1/48?

Howdy Steve, Yep. Sanger themselves have a new 1/48th scale CG-4A Waco glider vacuform kit. 15 metal parts, the rest vacuform, for 18 pounds sterling. They also have a Horsa and Hamilcar in the same scale. The URL is

Morning Darrick, thanks for the positive I.D.

This talk of the CG-4A has gotten me thinking: exactly how limited was Italeri's re-release of their 1/72 kit a few months ago? The reason I ask is becasue I (unfortunately) waited a couple of months after the initial release, and when I finally did get around to ordering all of my usual sources were 'out of stock' already. I would love to have this kit in the 'to build' pile, but don't want to pay the steep prices that this kit seems to fetch on ebay. Oh well, next time I know to pounce right away, right?

You should be able to find it at swap meets at a reasonable price. The Waco and the Horsa seem to get re-issued every decade or so. hth

The Keeper (of too much crap)

Have you checked e-Bay? I may dump one there soon since I was going to use it to scale up for a 1/48 scratchbuilding project, and now probably won't need. I think I'll wait untill I see the Sanger kit first.

Many years ago I met with Gordon Sutcliffe - the guy behind Contrail Models - who's moulds went to Sanger when he retired.

He told me the story of a visit to his cottage in Somerset by a couple of Italian guys who were interested in what he was producing.

He showed them around his small workshop and one-man production facility and was his usual very generous self.

When they asked what his best-selling kits were, he told them that they were the Horsa and Waco gliders - because they appealed to both the aircraft AND the military modellers.

Imagine his dismay when less than a year later, Italeri released injection-moulded kits of the same subjects!!!

It killed his sales of the vacform gliders stone dead.

Gordon was a woodwork teacher at the local school and started making wooden masters for his vacforms. I lived reasonably close and visited him quite a few times.

He even let me have the wooden masters for a C-5 Galaxy fuselage that he was working on. I modified them and made a mould for a fibreglass resin model that I still have somewhere..............

Ken Duffey

Thanks for the great back story! It's amazing how most of us can buy or build a vac only to be quaked by the injected version a year later.

I've got an article in a SAM I believe about Sutcliffe, the photo shows Gordon slaving in front of a hot oven in the summertime. That's dedication! Cheers,

The Keeper (of too much crap)