Scale Model World 2015
By Michael J. Gething
It never ceases to amaze me that so many people build kits ... not just here in the UK but all around the world. The 'I' in IPMS really does mean International. Not so very long ago, the annual jamboree for IPMS (UK) was known as "The Nats" (as in the UK National Championships), attracting a few adventurous European modellers and the occasional North American, but somewhere along the line it morphed into a really BIG show. Foreign languages (and I'm not just talking regional accents, however foreign they might sound to some) could be heard all around the three halls: halls stuffed with displays from Branches at home (UK) and abroad, from the Special Interest Groups (aka SIGs), and from traders ranging from major kit manufacturers, Airfix and Revell, through specialist after-market producers, purveyors of paint and tools, vendors of glue (of all types and chemical composition), makers of lights and bases, and on to the many pre-owned but un-built kit-trading specialists. And then there was the IPMS Kit Swap ... and the competitions too.
However, before I get too lyrical, as this is by way of a "first news from the front" piece, I'll let the pictures (and captions) speak for themselves and give a brief flavour of the last two days as it flowed over me.
As you walked in the door, one was met with a splendid Bomber Command display – the off-looking type front right with the wing-mounted engines is a Shorts Sperrin.
The “Big Reveal” from Airfix is a 1/72 Handley Page Victor B.2 that looks every bit as good as the Vulcan and Valiant before it...
... while one modeller produced an effective cutaway of the recently-released 1/72 Avro Shackleton MR.2 with the fuselage cutaway to reveal the interior detail supplied. When observing that without a cutaway, much of that detail would be invisible, an Airfix representative told Cybermodeler “if we’d not put it in we’d have been criticised”.
Airfix also plans to re-issue the 1/24 Hawker Typhoon with the “Car Door” canopy, as per this test-shot.
Revell’s big announcement was a 1/72 kit of the AEW.2 version of the Avro Shackleton which looks every bit as good as the rival MR.2 product ...
... while later this month (November) Revel will release a new-tool 1/72 BAe Hawk T.1A in Red Arrows livery and featuring a detailed cockpit ...
Also on the Revell stand was a rather large (1/350 scale) model of the USS New Jersey, the build of which was described as “challenging”.
The subject of this S&M resin kit – the Armstrong Whitworth 681 – may not be familiar to a US audience ... it was a STOL transport for the RAF cancelled in 1964, following a change of UK government, just a year before TSR-2 also bit the dust.
Pocketbond is the UK distributor for Trumpeter and was showing this contents of their 1/350 kit of HMS Hood, which is new to the UK (but not Cybermodeler)
In the following few examples from Competition-winning models, I was unable to extract a list of names to match with models, so the modeller and class will remain anonymous but, I believe you’ll agree, it’s all GOOD modelling ... I particularly liked this Elizabethian galleon for the detail in the rigging and the sea effect.
Having written my get-out clause in the previous caption, enlargement of this print tells me the model is HMS Buccaneer, a Brigand-class tug from Barry Sharman, which won a Gold.
A rather fetching Soviet-era SU-152 self-propelled gun ...
... and the classic British 5.5 inch towed howitzer.
This Scottish soldier from around the Omdurman period (I model aircraft mainly, not infantry soldiers, sorry pardon) caught both my eye and that of the judges ...
... as did this exquisitely detailed Dassault Mirage F1-C of the Hellenic Air Force – even the tools in the tool box show up ...
A random picture from one of the many Branch stands depicts the construction of the Phoenix from the movie “Flight of the Phoenix” (and I much prefer the original with Jimmy Stewart and Dickie Attenborough!).
To conclude, this final view shows one half of my own IPMS Branch (Mid-Sussex) stand, showing the typically eclectic range of models our members make ... and I’ll assume responsibility for the Spitfires and the Hurricane Mk I ( reviewed in Cybermodeler here).