Scale Model World 2023

[MikeV]

Well....what a show !!

This year felt much more like the old days with a buzz and positivity that was palpable, under the new system we paid for extra tables but this brought certainty to planning (it was essentially a lottery before)and you all rose to the occasion magnificently.

We tried to vary the display this year by grouping similar models by type or manufacturer - that seemed to work - for instance no less than 12 Spitfires with no duplicates.

Exhibiting this year were David (Hart), Huw, Tim & Emma, Joe, Alastair, Callum, Terry, Jon Nichols, Andy, yours truly and new member Nathan - who incidentally, had models of such quality that we are going to have to up our game in future !! we also had visiting members literally fly in from around the world - as if that were not enough we were blessed with The Holy Water (much thanks Joe) Special mention too for Ian and Steve who made such a difference to the set-up and break down by helping with the carrying of our not inconsiderable display set-up.

We are already working on next year's programme - watch as they say this space - some pictures below -feel free to add more !

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Set up and ready for the start gun on Saturday morning

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The Sci-Fi section

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Gundams survey the multiple Mirages and serried ranks of Spitfires

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Closer view of the Dassault section - there are more to come!

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Spits and Corsairs

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Avro and the RAF Fighters dominated the centreline

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US manufacturers

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armour and Joe's amazing bi-planes

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Nathan's excellent models

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The Japanese display also won a prize from the Asian Air Arms SIG

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found this on the competition tables -AFV Club Corsair in NACA's wind tunnel - absolutely stunning !

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most of the merry crew

[daveF]

Looks like you had an excellent time and congratulations on a superb display.

David

[teddybeer]

Other pictures....

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[teddybeer]

Again....?

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And more and more pictures :
- here : https://144airbattle.blogspot.com/2023/ ... 144-1.html
- and here : https://144airbattle.blogspot.com/2023/ ... 144-2.html
- and there : https://144airbattle.blogspot.com/2023/ ... 144-3.html

[Tim R-T-C]

Slightly late since I'm still slowly catching up from a two week holiday, but the 144 roadshow reached the pinnacle of the year with SMW '23 in Telford.



To those who have not been before, the scale of the show is hard to imagine - we were in one of three, equally sized and equally busy halls with some 10,000 attendees over the two days.







Of course Emma and I took a selection of vignettes and the SIG table positively groaned under the wide variety of models on display from a wide variety of kit and non-kit sources.

The combined themes such as grouping together Spitfires gave a demonstration of one of the great benefits of the smaller scale - building a wide variety of different variations on the same airframe - and was most eye catching.













Elsewhere, there was a decent selection of 144th on display across the halls - Yves' posts have done a good job of detailing, see all his pics at https://144airbattle.blogspot.com/searc ... %201%2F144

A few of my vignettes overspilled onto my Keighley display table as well.



I was very impressed by the 1/1 Ferret armoured car that Airfix brought along - maybe something they could do in future with all armour releases



On the trade front, there was not much in 144th plastic available. I picked up the Mark 1 Twin Otters on Hannants pre-order but didn't see them for sale anywhere. A small selection of new and old kits were discovered hiding on various trade stands and were picked up by SIG members.

On the plus sign, there was a fair amount of resin available direct from the suppliers in the form of 144th.co.uk and their British jet collection, NeOmega Resin's ship models and Laci UK's aircraft and detail parts.



This was my haul, excluding my Hannants order and an Anigrand Mi-1 that was aquired from a fellow modeller.

The U-Star tanks were £3 each so it would have been very rude to resist these.
The Yak-40 caught my eye because it has General Air markings, same as on one of the Twin Otter boxings, so thought that might make an interesting 1970s German vignette.
I couldn't say no to a concrete mobile pillbox Bison - just need to find a way to include one of these in a BoB vignette.
The Laci engines are for a 737-500 I aquired on a good price from Hannants (several of the EE kits are on good discount at present)
The un-scaled Thresher shark, I have no idea what I will do with...!