Mass request.

[Padubon 762]

What if we get a large number of LSP members to participate on some sort of election, in which we can nominate several aircraft, unavailable in injection molded plastic and finalize with three commercially feasible 1/32 kits.

 

With the 1st, 2nd and 3rd winners, we vote again to select the most wanted kit and formally request a manufacturer to do something about it.

 

Anybody that wants to participate, must support the final pick. It does not mean everyone will buy one but it is worth the try.

 

We are a few thousand members here at LSP. I think we can do something.

My grandfather used to say: “The twin baby that cries the loudest gets the boob first”.

[cbk57 1,340]

You are absolutely right, I think it would be a great idea, however, getting all of the members on this site to agree on anything other than being a member of this site(some question their agreement to that) won’t happen.  I think personally some manufacturers would listen to a request from the right number of people.  However 20% of our members would want a subject only they have ever heard of but think it is the greatest plane ever, 20% would want something obvious, 60% of our members would not agree with either of the 1st two groups and we would split off again into disagreement.  I think the best we could hope for is some sort of general disagreement and a list we voted on.  

 

Also there are announcements out there of a lot of the worthwhile kits, it is just going to take years for some of them to show up.  ZM, WNW, and HKM have all announced some great upcoming kits but we won’t see many of these for several years.  I don’t see any point in pursuing Tamiya, they will do what they want with minimal regard to us as 1/32 enthusiasts.  The big three in 1/32 really are ZM, WNW, and HKM and I think their plates are pretty full.  

Edited August 23, 2019 by cbk57

[Out2gtcha 32,869]

Honestly it is a good idea, but we've had something very similar in the past (KOTY vote) and in the end as was pointed out, getting a worth while consensus (or even sometimes participation at all) was a vastly harder endeavour than one would expect, and it really became a burden on the volunteer staff to even keep up with it regularly. 

Getting the word out to a manu after a vote from our little niche community  Im not sure would have much if any impact in the end. I could be wrong about that, but LSP and the 1/32nd and larger modeling community is pretty small by comparison to the overall group of modelers that buy and make the manus money in the end. 

[Jennings Heilig 13,582]

Good idea that's been used for many years.  For many of those years, the two top 1/48 scale most requested kits included the PBY and the RA-5C.  Ed Sexton of Monogram told me that once they succumbed to the pressure and did the PBY, it turned out to be one of the slowest selling kits they'd ever done, and that that was their last time listening to "most wanted" list results.  How many 1/48 RA-5C kits have you ever seen at shows? I can think of two in the almost 20 years that kit has been out.

[Tony T 5,361]

 

Some wanted kits just simply take too long to reach the market, by which time we're emotionally exhausted.

 

You'll find less than a handful of supporters for my top three new tools: Su-15TM Flagon, (accurate) E E Lightning F.2A/F.6 and the entire J.35 Draken series. I know they'll never come out as 1/32 IM styrene.

 

We all have our own desires and getting any kind of agreement would be like trying to shepherd cats.

 

Tony 

 

 

[Padubon 762]

I think my modeler day of joy will be when I see a 1/32 Tamiya P-47 and a decent 1/32 A-37 from anybody.  Certainly, not even Col. Tibbets could persuade Tamiya. Hopefully Trumpy, HK or ZM do a -37.

[Dave Williams 3,186]

To be absolutely honest, I think it’s a waste of time for a number of reasons.

 

First, there may be thousands of member names, but there are probably no more than a 100 or so that access the site regularly and less that would actually participate.  Then of those, there won’t be agreement, so the top three candidates would have less votes.  Let’s be generous and assume that the winner gets 50 votes.  Not sure what saying that those whose choice wasn’t picked “must support” the winner means (how does that work, and why would anyone support a kit they aren’t interested in?).  Then the intention is, an “official request” (whatever that is) gets sent to a manufacturer (which one?), saying that 50 people over at LSP would like to request that your company make a large scale kit of X.  With the price of quality molds running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, I’m not sure that’s enough to make any manufacturer commit.

 

Sorry to rain on the parade, but realistically, I don’t see this working at all.

[GrahamF 1,285]

I think it's also presumptuous that some of the wanted kits are not being worked on. They might already be.

Graham 

[mozart 9,912]

32 minutes ago, Padubon said:

I think my modeler day of joy will be when I see a 1/32 Tamiya P-47 and a decent 1/32 A-37 from anybody.  Certainly, not even Col. Tibbets could persuade Tamiya. Hopefully Trumpy, HK or ZM do a -37.

Here’s your first example of disagreement, I wouldn’t want a P47 and I’ve no idea what an A37 is! 

[John1 2,834]

Given that us folks on LSP don’t come close to representing the average scale modeler these days, I highly doubt that any company would be persuaded by our demands.  

[Out2gtcha 32,869]

1 hour ago, Padubon said:

I think my modeler day of joy will be when I see a 1/32 Tamiya P-47 and a decent 1/32 A-37 from anybody.  Certainly, not even Col. Tibbets could persuade Tamiya. Hopefully Trumpy, HK or ZM do a -37.

 

Looks like formerly TAN models now Jetmads is planning a 1/18th DF...........

 

https://www.jetmads.com/product-page/1-18-a-37-dragonfly

 

 

 

57 minutes ago, mozart said:

...................and I’ve no idea what an A37 is! 

Its a cute, flat little thing, that in Nam, seemed like it carried about as much ordinance as it weighed!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Out2gtcha 32,869]

Some other really classy Tweet schemes too...............it would be the perfect subject for larger scales with its size IMHO

 

[Royboy 1,058]

1 hour ago, GrahamF said:

I think it's also presumptuous that some of the wanted kits are not being worked on. They might already be.

Graham 

You're a proper tease Graham...…………….

[ringleheim 2,029]

It's a nice thought in principle.

In execution, it won't achieve much.

 

 

[mozart 9,912]

Thank you Brian: wrong country, wrong era, wrong theatre for me.