Grumpy Old Modeller

Crystal Balls

When I sketched out my Master Plan for gom.com it must have seemed logical to have one section to look in to the immediate and likely future, and I saw this as the equivalent of the Pending Tray of my increasingly distant, bureaucratic middle-age. Experience has shown that including anything which isn't actually lined up panting on the edge of the workbench is perhaps rash, and may be giving the occasional hostage to fortune if after a brief mention it doesn't reappear, preferably accompanied by a photo. The idea for my crystal balls was to look a little farther in to the future, at kits and perhaps even books which had been announced and which could seriously interest me, and perhaps you, when they materialised, or about which the rumours were too strong to ignore (the Rumours were given a section to themselves, but I found that in practice these were best accomodated elsewhere, as often as not in the Press page, especially as Replic was probably the best single source ).

As I shan't be compiling a New Kit list as such this year,and it appears that there will be nothing at at the London Toy Fair which could interest us, I'll have to wait till the word spreads back from Nuremburg on what may be in our collective future for the 2009. A quick look at the Hannants Future Releases section can sometimes be revealing, and even encouraging - I've just noticed Revell's revival of the Matchbox Privateer and their all-new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which is teetering on the edge of being a What If? possibility - but some of the items listed have been listed in that section there, through no fault of the website, long enough to take root or, or if you remember the old O'Hare ATC/Speedbird Britannia story, to pay rent.. I would quite like to see a date of insertion for each entry, but perhaps that could prove embarrassing. Meanwhile Mr Anigrand, whose website I consult more regularly that I do Madame ZaZa, promises me not only a Lockheed Cheyenne - my plan had been to finish it in Israeli colours, but that might have to be on hold for a while, and I could even wait for the thoughts of my friendly rotorhead Mike Verier - and the trio of V-bombers in 1:144th. The Vulcan and Victor are both announced as mark 2s, and the Valiant as a 1, and it will be interesting to see if there are any tanker options; what I would really, really like is a Valiant B.2, the "black bomber". Even if the assiduously spread rumour of a 1:72nd injection-moulded Valiant in a year or two comes true, it's a major conversion.

As part of a lengthier look in to the future, at least for the next six months or so, my social secretary and I got out our several diaries over the weekend, and tried to sort out any potential conflicts in that period. There are some occasions when air traffic control was simple when compared with deconflicting a folk festival and an air display on an apparent collision course;. Last year Flying Legends and RIAT coincided, and this year Legends shares a weekend with the Ely Folk Festival; given their relative geographical closemess dashing from one to the other shouldn't be too difficult, but as in ATC it'll all depend on timing. I can only hope that in their wisdom the Ely organizers will schedule Chris While and Julie Matthews for the Saturday evening, and the gorgeous Flossie Malavielle for the Sunday, and that the Duxford sun shows equally thoughtful timing.

Still before then, there's the Northolt night photoshoot on 29th January, and IPMS Milton Keynes' ModelKraft on the 1st February, and Southern Expo in March and I've sent off my booking for Sun 'n' Fun. April in Florida, blue skies, aged aeroplanes and a return visit to Fantasy of Flight;.good, eh? Maybe there are things in my future that could just get me through the next few grey weeks.