CorsairJock
Posts: 1951
Joined: 4/14/2002
From: Parchment,
MI, USA
Status: offline
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Let's talk giant scale for a moment:
Zirolli & Miester both make Allied AND Axis planes/ kits/ plans
when I attand warbird event in my area (within 100 miles or more from Kalamazoo, MI).
My experiences are this:
for every Mustang, Corsair, & Thunderbolt: there is 1 FW-190 (thankfully NOT a Dora). That right there says that for every 3 allied planses, there is 1 axis. Zeros & P-40s for some reason are RARE. even Hellcats outnumber them. Stukas on the the other hand: there's a few of them showing up, sometimes in pairs. There are a few ME-109s also, and an occasional Hurricane and/ or Spitfire. I'm not making any political statement here, I'm just calling it as I see it. And what I think is this: the majority of Americans (in this area anyway) prefer building/ flying American aircraft. That means the British aircraft are not as popular either.
Now for the smaller scales:
I think the VQ Zero has probably far outsold all other VQ warbirds. Personally, I would LOVE Hangar 9 to come out with a Zero, and I would be 1st on their list if they did.
But for whatever reason, I am not seeing the VQ models at warbird events. I DO see some KMP models showing up in the last 2 years, mostly hellcats and Corsairs, even tho THEY make a Zero (actually: 2 Zeros/ 2 differnt sizes) as well.
I think the heyday of kit manufacturers is long gone, taken over by ARFs. While there are many that would prefer to build form a kit, they are becoming outnumbered. That means that kitmakers are struggling. Let's talk SkyShark for a moment: someone here at RCU started a thread about 6 months ago complaining about the increase in prices for the SkyShark kits, which are now well above the Top Flite kit prices. I don't think the owner(s) of SkyShark are trying to scalp anybody, I think they just want to be able to stay in business and keep their heads above the water. And they needed to raise their prices to do so. So if their kits cost more than Top Flite kits: how well do you suppose Top Flite is doing right now? My guess is not very well at all, and they are having to discontinue what is not selling/ is not profitable. I'm gonna go out on a limb here are guess that the Top Flite Corsair has outsold all of their other warbirds COMBINED. Thier second best selling one would probably be the Thunderbolt, then Mustang. But again, for whatever reason: their P-40s are rare.
BTW: the majority of SkyShark planes that I see at events are the Hellcat. Same for Wing Mfg. & Jemco (all 3 made axis planes as well).
Top Flite TRIED to market a Gold Edition Zero a few years back: unfortunately tho, it was based on their AT-6 kit and was in fact a Hollywood Zero, and many of us realized that it wasn't a true Zero so we shied away from it.
So consider it a conspiracy if you want, I think it is profit motivated.
< Message edited by CorsairJock -- 2/16/2007 12:53:55 PM >
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