Zeiskam Model expo 2010

Zeiskam Model Expo

On the 6/7 March 2010 weekend, the PMC Südpfalz (Plastic Modellers Club) held its annual model expo in the little town of Zeiskam. It’s always the season opener for the modellers in Southwest Germany. Usually in early March the first signs of spring are visible, but not so this year. In the night from Friday to Saturday there was a heavy snowfall all over the area and everything was covered in white the next morning. But somehow everyone managed to be at the Fuchsbachhalle, a sports hall, right on time. It was good to see all the fellow modellers again with their latest works made during long winter evenings. Unfortunatly both my Black Widows which I am building for the Twin Boom Campaign weren’t ready yet for this show.

The participating clubs came mainly from the area, but also from France and Switzerland. As often, our beloved aircrafts were in the majority, this year especially the big scale 1:32, which seems to become more popular every year. So there were many of these „big ones“ to be seen, like Revells Ju 88, Hasegawas „Langnasen-Dora“ or the brandnew „Stringbag“ from Trumpeter. Even Airfix‘ new big 1:24 Mossie was on show, as were models in all other scales.

The expo showed a wide variety of plastic models, from ships (which are also always „big“ in Zeiskam), military vehicles and tanks, civil cars and motorbikes, figures and even ships made of matches – and not small ones! There is no contest to keep the costs low. Instead the female part of the club sold much needed coffee and yummy cakes! And of course there were enough hobby dealers to spend our hard earned money, an opportunity which no one could resist, including me.

WW2 aircraft wreckages recovery team

Of special interest were the tables of Uwe Benkel, who is a member of the „Arbeitsgruppe Vermisstenforschung“, a team of volunteers, which searches for and recovers crashed aircrafts of WW 2 mainly in the southwestern part of Germany. Over the years they have found many wreckages and sometimes even the remains of the pilot in it. This is not happy modelling but sad reality. Uwe Benkel showed some pieces of engines and parts of uniforms that he found, beside photos of the pilots and oil paintings of the aircrafts on their last flight. If you want to know more about it, visit this german/english website: www.flugzeugabstuerze-saarland.de.

But now enjoy my pictures!