May 2016 – Page 2 – The Motor Pool

A Case of Ritchie Deja Vu

HA1973a

If you missed Hobby Master’s Steve Richie 1:72 scale F-4 Phantom on its first high-speed pass several years ago then you may want to sit up and take notice of this second sortie. Hobby Master just announced that an all-new F-4D version of his Vietnam era warbird is expected this summer, this time bearing all five MiG kills (“red stars”) on the fuselage but more importantly, flashing Ritchie’s signature on the display base.

HA1973

Naturally enough, this extremely sought after replica will set you back a few dollars more than when his first mount was released, but when you consider what his autograph brings to the table and the relatively low number of models being produced (only 800), we believe that HA1973 is going to be snapped up in a heartbeat. Keep your eye on this one!

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Air Force 1 Spends a Night at the Museum

AF10140

Some times a company pivots when you least expect it. With their eagerly awaited 1:72 scale Boeing B-17 bomber just a month away, and little else on the docket for the forseeable future, Air Force 1 Model Company announced their intent to create a brand new series of military miniatures in conjunction with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Dubbed simply as their Smithsonian Series, plans call for an initial batch of five aircraft to be produced, all in differing scales and, naturally enough, based upon aircraft they’ve previously researched and produced in much larger, standard formats.

AF10137

The five aircraft include a B-25 Mitchell bomber, B-29 Superfortress, SR-71 Blackbird, P-61 Black Widow and a MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. Look for the quintet to arrive some time in July.

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Is There a Flogger in Your Future?

HA5301

At long last, images have finally surfaced for Hobby Master’s upcoming 1:72 scale MiG 23 Flogger fighter. The variable-geometry swing wings are clearly in evidence, as is the opening canopy, weapons loadout and seated pilot figure.

HA5301c

Expected in July, with more schemes and variants no doubt waiting in the wings, ahem, it looks like another war winner has sauntered into the Hobby Master stable.

HA5301d

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Eaglemoss Pushes its Star Trek Franchise into New Frontiers

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Eaglemoss, the maker of the wildly popular Star Trek Starships Collection partworks series, intends to bring out an entire library of Star Trek-related graphic novels. According to the Trek Collective web site, “The fortnightly series will deliver a hardcover editions of comics drawn from the entire fifty year history of Star Trek comic publishing. The books will feature spine-art building up a single image, plus new introductory texts:

With this collection you can revisit all the classic characters and incredible art from the STAR TREK comic archives. Every edition has a specially-commissioned introduction to provide context to the story. Every book contains a number of collected comics and a bonus reprint of one of the comic archive’s classic stories.”

No word as yet who will distribute the perfect bound graphic novels here in North America. Page counts, pricing, exact content and delivery dates are also in the ether, so for now, all we can do is drool over the photos posted and hope they boldly go sooner, rather than later, before the next feature film and CBS-owned TV-series hits the large and small screens. Live long and prosper.

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Popular Mechanics: “Star Wars Gets its All Wrong”

When it comes to military might in the old and new Republics, Star Wars gets it wrong. So says Popular Mechanics, one of the oldest mainstream publications that likes to cover everything from jet skis to sci-fi epics. To coincide with May the 4th, the date Star Wars aficionados like to play up everything related to the Star Wars universe, the magazine claims that many of the groundpounding combat vehicles seen in the feature-length films sacrifice sensibility for hype, reasonable looks at military science for jaw-dropping appeal. You can view the full article here:

Popular Mechanics on Star Wars

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