2013 MOM Retrospective

What a stunning collection of builds! We really do have an awesome group of contributors on Aeroscale, truly the best scale aircraft site on the whole interweb. Thanks for putting together the summary Jess, great job. Cheers, D

Who can compete with aeroscale in terms of skill? Great spread. Questions? There's a bare metal bomber shown tight to the nose. Is that a bosun? There's a radial engine Japanese fighter that I can't identify from the overhead angle. What's that? Is the other Japanese aircraft a Judy? Is that an Indian hind? Is the austro-hungarian flying boat a hansa brandenburg cc? Thanks!

That's an Il-28 Beagle Mitsubishi A7M Reppu Aichi M6A1-K Nanzan It's Czech, but you can be forgiven for missing the very low-vis roundel hiding behind the wing Yes it is.

OK. I was going somewhere with that. So based on my own offhand knowledge, augmented with Jess' and some wiki, here are the numbers. Well some of them. If we assume that this is a reasonable statistical sample (it isn't) but let's say it is. We can see that: -aeroscale is not a predominantly WWII forum. 26 of 61 unique entries are of a 39-45 subject. But it is heavily skewed that way. -aeroscale is not a strong First World War forum. Only 8 of 61 entries is WWI. And only ten fall into early aviation as a whole. This does not reflect the facts. (just take a look at the post count in the early category) But it may suggest that the stringers should come out and play more. -aeroscale over-emphasizes military aviation. Only 3 of 61 subjects are non-military. And one of those three is a fictitious aircraft with two maxim guns. This is true, but for the entire hobby. Not just aeroscale. -aeroscale is deutsch-tastic. 23 of 61 subjects are aircraft of German origin. 23 are in German markings with another two wearing Austrian colours. That's hard to deny. I'm as guilty as anyone of being a luftwaffe modeller, albeit unconsciously. I should work on diversifying my collection. -screw it! We prefer propellers. 39 of 61 subjects are airscrew driven. -10 of 37 piston engine aircraft have radial engines. Aeroscale prefers in line 2.7 times to one! That doesn't seem right... - some rivalries settled. Eight bf109's (one of which was drawing board only) to only 2 spitfires... 2 mustangs, 1 jug, and 3 190's. But Eduard's new spitfire may correct this next year. Oh and no zeros or hayabusas! None! -Single and loving it! 46 of 61 subjects had one engine! Wow. -Gracious in victory. Only four subjects were British and only five of British origin! Seriously shocking there. No commonwealth showing at all. -Noone is turning Japanese. Only two subjects were Japanese! Another shocker for me. -12 subjects had official or common names that were birds, 8 were essentially adjectives, 6 were mammals, 4 could be described as forces of nature, 2 were named for things that don't exist, 2 for places, 1 for a reptile, 23 had no official name other than letter/number and no prevailing nickname, and 3 were called starfighter. Which is a silly name.

So how does the same analysis work for 2012?