Despite extensive shipping delays here in the North American market, Hobby Master announced yet another batch of new warbirds, this one purportedly set to arrive in July 2022. The “July” shipment contains a number of models that haven’t been made available for some time, including a Douglas A-1H Skyraider and a Lockheed-Martin F-22A Raptor. Its not apparent if these new models will actually arrive as advertised considering the huge logjam of ships still waiting to dock and be offloaded. At this point, July may be an optimistic forecast since a great many aircraft that were previously touted are taxiing onto the diecast tarmac awaiting their own clearance for takeoff. To be clear, the incessant delays aren’t the fault of either Hobby Master or our distributor, since the product is being made on time and can oftentimes be found in other parts of the world. The culprit, as has been pointed out by the media, is the current breakdown in the global supply chain, which has played havoc with the release schedule here in North America, If cargo ships are sitting idle for weeks on end and there aren’t enough truckers available to transport the containers from the ports to the distributors, two key bottlenecks that still haven’t been overcome, then the net result is incessant delays in being able to ship out product to retailers.
In any event, I’ll get off my soapbox and offer up the rundown of what the “July” roster entails: