AEROGRAMME HOME > AEROGRAMME #3 [Sent 06 October 2024]
Thank You
Hello Friends
Well what a week it was here at VMC!
The Westland Lysander kit release went incredibly well.
Thank you so much to all of you who bought a kit - it really does mean so much to us that we have such great support from the community.
All newsletter subscribers who bought a kit last weekend were put into a virtual hat and the lucky winner was Richard T. of London!
Don’t forget that as a subscriber, you’re automatically entered into a draw each month to win a free kit, with no purchase required, so good luck at the end of the month when we’ll announce October’s winner.
On Wednesday, I trundled down the A1 to Old Warden to drop off a bunch of kits (including the new Lysander) to the Shuttleworth Collection gift shop.
We usually send the kits down by courier but I had arranged to stop by Andy Sephton’s home to pick up the lovely Tiger Moth he had made for our display cabinet and to drop off a new 30” Lacey M10 kit we hope to release early next year.
It was great to catch up with Andy and get some background on Old Warden - possibly my favourite museum ever. For those of you who don’t know, Andy was chief pilot at the museum and was the first to fly their Westland Lysander (on which our kit is modelled) after its refurb.
Andy wrote a very interesting article on the experience that you can read here:
https://haa-uk.aero/document/flying-the-shuttleworth-collection-ww-ii-lysander/
Had the weather been more clement, I would have stopped at Gibraltar Farm on the old RAF Tempsford airfield site to visit the little barn that holds memorials to the unbelievably brave SOE agents and pilots who flew from there on clandestine operations behind enemy lines in WW2.
I assure you, the irony of my reluctance to get a bit wet in comparison to the challenges they faced was not lost on me…
I will endeavour to visit the site next time I’m passing and thank you to Martin Appleby who made me aware of the site via this blog post:
https://gfreedmanblog.com/2018/10/26/a-memorable-and-moving-walk-around-tempsford-airfield/
Thursday saw a group of gentlemen visit our workshop for a look behind the scenes at VMC.
It was lovely to welcome them and, without wishing to embarass them, tap up their many decades of combined aero-modelling experience for suggestions, ideas and “state of the hobby” knowledge.
Among the group was incredibly talented modeller Paul Briggs who, as well as having excellent taste in classics cars ;), brought along three of his models for me to photograph.
These are all built from kits in our Magnificent Flying Machines range, but with Paul’s considerable skill brought to bear on enhancing the models appearance with additional details and superb markings schemes.
First is this superb Bf-109 (swastika removed for publishing purposes):
Second is this lovely Fokker D8
And finally, his spectacular SE5a
I don’t know about you, but I find these just so inspirational.
Should you too feel inspired, you can of course grab one of these kits yourself below:
Aircraft Museums
I heard from Andrew Darby yesterday who was attending the Duxford Flying Finale - a spectacular airshow that included lots of Spitfires and Hurricanes as well as a full on Red Arrows display.
Andrew was dismayed to find that the only model aircraft kits available for sale from the Imperial War Museum (IWM) were plastic kits made in China.
About 8 years ago we used to supply the IWM and the RAF Museums at Hendon and Cosford with balsa kits, but for whatever reason the buying teams there decided not to continue offering our kits.
It seems a shame as so many of our kits are modelled on aircraft displayed in these museums - we sell a good number of kits each year in the Old Warden gift shop, so we assume the issue can’t be price.
So, as usual, I have a small favour to ask of you.
If you happen to be visiting a museum where you think our kits would sell well, please could you remorselessly badger politely suggest that they might like to stock VMC kits?
Thank you.
COMMUNITY BUILDS
We’ve had a bit of a lull in community builds recently, however the absolute building machine that is Barry Scollay has come to the rescue again with his latest project - our Aerographics Gloster Gladiator.
This time Barry shouldn’t have to make too many modifications as the kit is designed to accept an electric motor and RC electronics, however I’m sure he’ll add some of his creative flair to the project nonetheless.
I for one can’t wait to see what he comes up with this time!
That’s it for this week.
All the best
Hadi & the VMC Team
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