Airfix

[PR19_Kit]

Airfix for one are not going to do that. I've had the distinct feeling for the last few years that they're trying to push people towards 1/48th.

They're ALL doing it! 

It's the good old 'Corporate Greed' thing again, they can charge more for 1/48 stuff than smaller scales without expending a LOT more money on tooling and draw materials.

I was going to say the modelling press aren't helping by pushing 1/48 too, but I'm pleased that the latest SAM is very pro-1/72 for a change. 

[jcf]

Airfix for one are not going to do that. I've had the distinct feeling for the last few years that they're trying to push people towards 1/48th.

They're ALL doing it! 

It's the good old 'Corporate Greed' thing again, they can charge more for 1/48 stuff than smaller scales without expending a LOT more money on tooling and draw materials.

I was going to say the modelling press aren't helping by pushing 1/48 too, but I'm pleased that the latest SAM is very pro-1/72 for a change. 

🤣
The tooling and development cost goes up considerably as the scale,
and commensurate level of detail,
increases.
🙄
It's a business fer feck's sake.
None of them are pushing 1/48th scale on anybody. You don't want to build 1/48th scale, good for you no one has said you have to.
🙄

[PR19_Kit]

I disagree, there's been a considerable 'push' towards 1/48 in recent years, from the manufacturers and from some magazine proprietors too.

And of COURSE I don't have to build the things, but if the manufacturers are spending their time and money doing 1/48 stuff, they're NOT spending it on the 'One True Scale' (1/72) or on the 'Airliner Scale' (1/144) which happen to be my favourites. I happen to live in a rather small country where we have smaller houses and less room to show or store larger models.

[NARSES2]

I was going to say the modelling press aren't helping by pushing 1/48 too, but I'm pleased that the latest SAM is very pro-1/72 for a change. 

Very much so. Gary manages to keep a really nice selection of different scales in every addition. Plus this months even has a Vacform build for (insert deity of choice) sake 

As for 1/72 v 1/48 we've had the discussion many times before so lets not retread that path again please. The one thing I will say here though is that the introduction of 3D printing makes things very interesting. There are a few manufacturer's out there offering a model of "X" and you pick your scale 1/72, 1/48 or 1/32. We shall see how it developes.

[Old Wombat]

I disagree, there's been a considerable 'push' towards 1/48 in recent years, from the manufacturers and from some magazine proprietors too.

And of COURSE I don't have to build the things, but if the manufacturers are spending their time and money doing 1/48 stuff, they're NOT spending it on the 'One True Scale' (1/72) or on the 'Airliner Scale' (1/144) which happen to be my favourites. I happen to live in a rather small country where we have smaller houses and less room to show or store larger models.

I think Jon has a point. As modellers we're an aging demographic & many of us have moved from 1/72 to 1/48 as the larger scale is easier to work with.

Within the aging modelling demographic I think you'll find that the RW accuracy, hyper-accuracy, rivet-counter & JMN demographic outnumbers the whiffer demographic considerably. Many in that group are now building in 1/48 because the details are easier to see & achieve, & that they are the people contacting model manufacturers asking for more kits in the larger scales (1/32 is growing in popularity, btw).

There will always be those who prefer smaller scales & who enjoy working with a magnifying visor and/or loupe because their personal challenge is to get the most detail onto the smallest sublect they can - but I'd hazard that we whiffers out number them.

As to those of you who prefer to build in 1/72 for space or cost reasons, I fully understand &, if I could build exclusively in 1/72 without going blind, I would.

However, what I would suggest is that instead of fuming in silence, or complaining to your friends & companions every time a company brings out new 1/48 kits & fewer, or no 1/72 kits, that you write to your prefered manufacturers & politely ask them to bring out more new kits in 1/72, & state your reasons why. If you all did that several times throughout the year I'm sure you'd see some positive results.

Maybe even set up an online petition to send to the manufacturers - reminding them that you won't buy a single 1/48 kit but that you might buy 2, 3, 4 or even more reasonably priced 1/72 kits of any given subject.

[Rheged]

However, what I would suggest is that instead of fuming in silence, or complaining to your friends & companions every time a company brings out new 1/48 kits & fewer, or no 1/72 kits, that you write to your preferred manufacturers & politely ask them to bring out more new kits in 1/72, & state your reasons why. If you all did that several times throughout the year I'm sure you'd see some positive results.

Writing is always worth a try.  Those of us who watched "Yes, Minister"  will remember one of the civil service protagonists (Bernard, I think)   explaining it thus ...." Minister,  one letter on a given topic may be deemed to be from a crank, two letters are an expression of  genuine concern, three letters are a major  movement in public opinion and four letters are a torrent of condemnation"

[Charlie_c67]

Problem is, companies who try to funnel their customer base into the scale price band or whatever they push will often end up opening themselves to new competitors (Accurascale and Oxford Rail in model railways), old rivals (KP in 1/72, yes I know of their...issues, however...) or losing them to a totally new sphere (Games Workshop, amongst others, and the ever growing 3D printing market).

Being a luxury item means you're more beholden to your customer base than other industries.

[Beermonster58]

Problem is, companies who try to funnel their customer base into the scale price band or whatever they push will often end up opening themselves to new competitors (Accurascale and Oxford Rail in model railways), old rivals (KP in 1/72, yes I know of their...issues, however...) or losing them to a totally new sphere (Games Workshop, amongst others, and the ever growing 3D printing market).

Being a luxury item means you're more beholden to your customer base than other industries.

Inclined to agree with that. I think the most recent insult from Airfix to their 1/72 customers was fobbing them off with a 50+ year old, second rate Jaguar while simultaneously releasing a brand new 1/48 kit.

I'll buy the reissued Revell 1/72 Gannet in preference to the Airfix kit and(using your example) , will happily buy a 1/72 KP kit over an overpriced 1/48 Airfix one.

Yes, it's true I don't have to buy anything in 1/48 (or larger) and, I won't.

Now, as this is an Airfix thread, I will restrict this point to them for the sake of example. In 2026,virtually all of my purchases will be Revell and Italeri. They h ave a far better balanced range of scales (aircraft wise) and, even though heavy on reissues, there's far more of interest there (1/72 & 1/144) than Airfix has produced in a long time. So, my custom has already largely shifted there and, to companies like Roden, ICM, Mikromir and Zvezda

My choice of course but, I don't think I'm losing anything by doing so. I have no brand loyalty to Airfix

[Charlie_c67]

Problem is, companies who try to funnel their customer base into the scale price band or whatever they push will often end up opening themselves to new competitors (Accurascale and Oxford Rail in model railways), old rivals (KP in 1/72, yes I know of their...issues, however...) or losing them to a totally new sphere (Games Workshop, amongst others, and the ever growing 3D printing market).

Being a luxury item means you're more beholden to your customer base than other industries.

Inclined to agree with that. I think the most recent insult from Airfix to their 1/72 customers was fobbing them off with a 50+ year old, second rate Jaguar while simultaneously releasing a brand new 1/48 kit.

At least they're labelling their legacy models as such nowadays rather than letting you splurge the spondoolex and not finding out till you open the box at home!

[Beermonster58]

Problem is, companies who try to funnel their customer base into the scale price band or whatever they push will often end up opening themselves to new competitors (Accurascale and Oxford Rail in model railways), old rivals (KP in 1/72, yes I know of their...issues, however...) or losing them to a totally new sphere (Games Workshop, amongst others, and the ever growing 3D printing market).

Being a luxury item means you're more beholden to your customer base than other industries.

Inclined to agree with that. I think the most recent insult from Airfix to their 1/72 customers was fobbing them off with a 50+ year old, second rate Jaguar while simultaneously releasing a brand new 1/48 kit.

At least they're labelling their legacy models as such nowadays rather than letting you splurge the spondoolex and not finding out till you open the box at home!

Well, that's true of course but, its just one more reason why I think online petitions or, writing to the manufacturers etc is a waste of time. They just don't care. I think the episode with the Jaguar is indicative of their (Airfix's) attitude. It really doesn't matter now anyway. I haven't bought (other than a handful of Vintage Classics) a new Airfix kit since the Vulcan was released  in 2021. Their pricing doesn't help either but, that's another matter entirely!  

[Weaver]

At least they're labelling their legacy models as such nowadays rather than letting you splurge the spondoolex and not finding out till you open the box at home!

Well, that's true of course but, its just one more reason why I think online petitions or, writing to the manufacturers etc is a waste of time. They just don't care. I think the episode with the Jaguar is indicative of their (Airfix's) attitude. It really doesn't matter now anyway. I haven't bought (other than a handful of Vintage Classics) a new Airfix kit since the Vulcan was released  in 2021. Their pricing doesn't help either but, that's another matter entirely!  

I think the Jaguar episode shows both bad things and good things about Airfix.

The bad thing is that the fact that it happened at all clearly demonstrated that nobody at Airfix tried to build an example of the newly-delivered kits before they were shipped to the public. That's pretty poor quality control, especially when you're dealing with a sub-contractor on the other side of the planet who's shoulder you can't be looking over all the time.

The good thing is the response. They refunded everybody who'd bought one without question, withdrew all the stock and fixed the problem decently quickly, given that they had to conduct an internal post-mortem and then deal with India to solve the problem. At a minimum, you ended up with a free spares box contribution of a load of Jaguar parts. If you were lucky, you could use the flawed kit to build a what-if or swap the fuselage halves with someone who did so you ended up with a free, buildable, Jaguar GR.1.

Management speeches about "we don't make mistakes here" are pure hubris. Cock-ups WILL happen in ALL companies: it's how they deal with them that separates the good ones from the bad ones.

I have considerable brand loyalty to Airfix, both specifically to them and me, and in general because they're a British company. That's why I make the effort to tell them when they get things wrong or make things I won't buy: the feedback makes them better.

The effectiveness of different kinds feedback is a good question. On the one hand, you could say that writing a letter or e-mail means that you felt strongly enough to devote the time and effort to it, but on the other hand, it is still just one person and the communication takes place in private. I'm of the opinion that doing it publically on social media is far more effective. Social media is increasingly every company's "shop window". If they put out a Youtube video and there's a bunch of comments under it saying "wrong subject, wrong scale, too big, too expensive" then a) their social media managers should pick up on that, especially if it keeps happening, and b) if they don't they're missing a trick, because pretty much every potential buyer who watches the video will also read the comments and see it too.

I've found in other, non-modelling spheres that publically complaining about an otherwise uncontactable or unresponsive company on social media has got me a swift and effective response, so it can work.

[kerick]

Using social media can be very useful. The electrical transformer was leaking oil onto my trash cans a few years ago and I posted pics on farcebook. I also mentioned that there could be PCB but I couldn't be sure. Transformer was replaced in a few days instead of months.

[jcf]

Frankly "wrong scale, wrong subject, too big, too expensive" are entirely subjective
statements, and generally come across as little more than whinging, somewhat useful
as a data point but questionable as the basis of a new kit development business case.
Especially as there have been cases where manufacturers have listened to the trumpeting
of a loud minority and ended up with kits that sat on the shelf, and that was pre-social
media.

[PR19_Kit]

Any and ALL judgements about plastic model kits are entirely subjective.....................

[Weaver]

Frankly "wrong scale, wrong subject, too big, too expensive" are entirely subjective
statements, and generally come across as little more than whinging, somewhat useful
as a data point but questionable as the basis of a new kit development business case.
Especially as there have been cases where manufacturers have listened to the trumpeting
of a loud minority and ended up with kits that sat on the shelf, and that was pre-social
media.

Yes, it's my subjective feedback about how I subjectively feel about a given kit release: what other feedback should I give? Try to guess how some random other person feels about it? It's only like me filling in a market research questionaire: I can and should only fill it in for myself. It's up to the company to look at all the feedback they get and decide what the overall message is.