These kits originally were issued by a small, short-lived British manufacturer called Inpact. (That’s Inpact, not Impact.) They were later reboxed by Pyro, then Life-Like, then Lindberg. In their first incarnation, this line was packaged in boxes with the logo from the British movie “Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, or How I flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes” which was released in 1965. If you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat. (Here’s an interesting website about it: en.wikipedia.org/…/Those_Magnificent_Men_in_their_Flying_Machines .)
Lindberg itself seems to be out of business now. Most recently, though, at least four of the kits have been picked up by a relatively new firm called Round 2 Models ( www.round2models.com ). Round 2 is reissuing all sorts of kits from Lindberg, Hawk, and a few other old companies. Its versions of some of the old Pyro ships are creating quite a stir over on the “Ships” forum.
Inpact also did a small series of British fighters from the twenties and thirties: a Gloster Gladiator, a Hawker Fury, a Bristol Bulldog, and (my favorite) a Fairey Flycatcher. All four of them are also on Round 2’s list.
At the time of their release all the Inpact kits were state-of-the-art. The magazine reviewers commented on the realism of the “fabric” effect, the amount of detail, and the multi-pose pilots. As I remember, the “Flying Machine” kits had clear plastic wheels, with grooves representing the spokes. Run a little thinned paint into the grooves, and presto - a pretty realistic wire wheel, years before photo-etching. And each kit came with a little spool of “invisible thread” for the rigging. They command not-unreasonably high prices on the used kit market. (See, for instance: http://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=24145&manu=Inpact&erl=Inpact-1-48-Hawker-Fury-P202 .) But apparently the original issues are quite scarce, at least in the U.S.
The re-release of these kits is, to my mind at least, a pretty big event. (Newly-printed decals in the fighter kits will alone make the reissues preferable to the originals. The “Magnificent Men” kits, as I remember, didn’t have decals - but I may be wrong about that.) I’ve got my eye on that Flycatcher, in particular. I suspect when I actually see it in the box my memory of it will turn out to be rose-colored, but the basis for good, serious models is certainly there. And for early aviation enthusiasts, there’s nothing else on the plastic kit market to compete with those “Magnificent Men” kits. Bravo Round 2.
She’s stood up well over the years
