Ola people

I have a question. On one of the auction sites I regularly visit somebody is selling 5 1:48 Inpact kits of the "those magnificent flying machines series". I already checked what kind of price he had in mind and he is willing to sell them for 7,50 each. I think that is a great price.
But I wonder how the kits are. I found several finished builts. But so far I have not yet found any builtlogs. Is there anybody who built these kits? What were they like? How are the details? The kits on sale are:
- Avro Triplane
- Avro Biplane
- Bleriot
- Deperdussin 1911
- Martin Handasyde 1910

Would love to hear anybody's experiences with the above kits.

with friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

There is a whole section on these kits in the book "WWI in Plastic" by Brad K. Hansen. I get it down from the shelf later tonight.

That's an absolutely fantastic price! Snap them up just as soon as you can! The Inpact kits were also issued by Pyro and Life-Like so you may wish to search on those two names as well as Inpact.
Here are a few links to some built kits available online:
Bleriot
Martin-Handasyde build log here. Here's another one.
Avro Triplane partial build. This one's complete.
Most of the ones on your list built up
In general they're spot on for shape but the finer details are a little crude. The wheels are moulded solid with fine lines for the spokes for example. My copy of the Avro Biplane (in the Pyro box) is moulded with a solid rear fuselage instead of the open framework that should be there. It'll have to be replaced with plastic rod to be accurate.

I'd really love to get a Triplane kit to go along with my Biplane one of these days : )

Hi Robert

Harry Woodman described them as "outstanding" and I built the Martin-Handasyde about 1971-72 and thought it was a great kit for the time. If you can get them at that low price, I'd say grab them (or send me the details so I can!).

All the best

Rowan

Ola Stephen, Jessica and Rowan

Your input is appreciated.

@ Jessica
I did not know they were also released by Pyro and lifelike. I already have a bunch of the Pyro pre war racecars and they are about the nicest kits of those vehicles you can get. Thanks for thos links to the builtlogs and finished examples. They do built up pretty nice and with a bit of creative painting you can really get some neat results.

I think I will buy them... I actually get them even cheaper at 7 euro per kit since he lives very close by and I already bought another plane kit from him the other week. Seems like a very good deal.

If you like Aircraft of the 1910 period, you can not go wrong with these kits. I have the Boxkite and the Avro biplane. Outstanding detail. Get them if you can.

The kits in the Inpact line were:

P101 Bleriot
P102 Martin Handasyde 1910
P103 Deperdussin 1911
P105 Avro Biplane
P106 Avro Triplane

The set for sale is only missing the P104 Bristol Boxkite.

The detail in the kits was extrodinairy for the time. clear wheels to represent the exposed spokes, multipart pilots, rigging material & diagrams. The fabric representation was the best at the time.

The kits were first introduced in England in March 1966 (22.5p = .50 US at the time). they came to the US and the rest of the world in 1968 - 1969 and were available for $1.69 @ for about 4-5 years after that. The design was unique and highly detailed for the time. Though they were advertized for the Movie "Those Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines" Only the Boxkite and the Avro Triplane were used in the film.

After financial difficulties related to distribution and late production schedules, Inpact was forced to liquidate due to a court order that was brought by the company that provided the rigging thread included in the kits.

Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, Or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes is a 1965 British comedy film starring Stuart Whitman and directed and co-written by Ken Annakin. Based on a screenplay titled Flying Crazy, the story is set in 1910, when Lord Rawnsley, an English press magnate, offers £10,000 to the winner of the Daily Post air race from London to Paris, to prove that Britain is "number one in the air".

Ola Guys

Well after hearing all of you I got excited and I went by the guy and bought the 5 kits. As I said I got them even cheaper then what he originally asked and it turned out to be a good deal. Not only are they the original Inpact kits. The contents are all in mint condition. All the plastic parts still bagged. With the exception that the rigging thread dissapeared in 4 of the 5 kits. Only the Bleriot still has it.
Here a pic of my new additions to the stash.


Details are indeed pretty impressive considering the time these kits were produced. I'm really pleased with the deal I made this evening.

@ Stephen
Thanks for the background information. And also for that awesome still from the movie. I have only heard of it but never saw it. Going to track that one down as well.

Hi Robert

No worries about the missing thread if you intend to build them - you wouldn't want to use it.

I'm officially VERY jealous!

All the best

Rowan

From the look of that picture the German (Gert Foebe of Goldfinger fame) is flying one version of the Avro D (Impact Avro Biplane) and I do belive the Antionnette (pardon the spelling) may have been the other non Bleriot monoplane (inline engine right of the Bleriot). But its been a while since I've seen the movie. they crash several "Runners" before the ovie race starts, in various comical ways.

Captn Tommy

Hi again

The annoying thing is (and maybe this contributed to their eventual failure) - I never saw any of the kits for sale in the "proper" model shops back in the late '60s and early '70s - and in those days we had several even in a town like Bromley where I grew up. I only found my Martin-Handasyde in a local newsagents that sold a few kits as a sideline. I was so impressed, I went back and bought a second one, but they didn't have the rest of the range.

All the best

Rowan

I'm officially jealous! Actually those kits are horrible and worthless. I'll be glad to take them off your hands and spare you the misery of fighting with them.

And if you believe that, I have some beach-front property for sale. Come and see me at low tide.

Noooo Jessie!

Not the Aeroscale beachfront penthouse... you can't!

All the best

Rowan

Oh dear that generated a lot of jealous people.

@ Rowan. Is the thread not good? I know from years back that an uncle of mine used fishing wire for aircraft antenna wires. can that be used for rigging as well?
And you at least were around when all these cool kits from brands that went the way of the dodo were released and you could get them at quite decent prices as well. Being born 20 years too late and with a huge interest in the nostalgic it often means I have to pay prices that tarnishes the nostalgia quite quickly.

@ Tom
Are the planes they crash real aircraft or are they movieprops? I know the movieindustry has been pretty devastating throughout it's history when it comes to vehicles, aircraft and machinery. Tora Tora Tora comes to mind where they blew up a complete airforce if I'm not mistaken.

@ Jessica
Hmmm seaside property... That sounds interesting
Having checked the contents this evening I have to say you are correct... They are really horrible. I would not want to saddle up anybody with these kits. People might start talking bad about me... unloading my rubbish to unsuspecting people.
All kidding aside. The sad thing is, when I found out they were absolutely mint immediately my brain switched into collectors gear... The part of my brain that thinks it is a crime to break the mint condition. For that reason I still never built any of my old Pyro's I collected through the years. Even though I got them really cheap. I first will buy and built some cheaper and easier kits and practice with the rigging to get really good at it before I even think of tackling one of the Inpact pioneers.

Fishing line or invisible mending thread makes good rigging. Thread looks too messy when you look at it up close; it's got lots of little fibres hanging off it which make it look fuzzy. Another alternative is model railroad EZ line which is slightly stretchy and glues well with CA glue.

The airplanes they crashed in the movie were all static props. That scene with Gert Frobe was shot on a sound stage above a water tank and the other crashes done in a similar manner. They didn't dare crash the flyable airplanes; they only had 5 or 6 of them available and they had to finish the movie!

As far as collector's value goes, the way I look at it is that any time I build one of my "collectable" kits, I'm just doing my part to help the value of the remaining ones go up Model kits are meant to be built, not hoarded in a closet gathering dust.

No flying replicas were injured purposely to my knowledge. Props they were all, some very silly.

As for Tora Tora Tora, the P-40s destroyed were fiberglass replicas; the runners had V-8 engines in them and were remote control. One crash, the one running into the parked line, was flimed from various angles and used at least two times. the B-17s parked were actually painted Flats with airbrush ground shadows. The B-17 that landed on one wheel could not get the other wheel down - Really - so they pulled out the cameras and got the ground loop for the movie.

You might say I loved the movie. I saw it in cinemagraph, when it came out 1970. You think dolby is good? When the Zeros passed out of the picture the sound dopplered away behind you. One of my friends said as we left the movie "That was Great! Kind makes me want to see how the war turns out."
I did not hear that type of affect until Flags Of Our Fathers thirty+ years later.

Captn Tommy

Hi Robert

I'm not quite as old as my avatar might suggest!

Although the kits only cost about 4/6 (four shillings and sixpence - it was all pre-decimal) when they came out, that was about a month's pocket money. So, they represented a major investment for a 7 year-old - especially when I could almost guarantee my father would look at my latest treasures and say "You spent how much on six pennyworth of plastic?! You must be mad!"

All the best

Rowan

Hi Robert,

You got yourself a bunch of nice kits! I would probably kill someone for that Bleriot Nevertheless, enjoy the models because they're simply nice and can be built up to a high standard when treated with the care and patience that they deserve!

All the best,
Entoni

@ Jessica.
You are absolutely right. And actually my intent with every kit I buy is to built it. And if it doesn't get built it will eventually be sold. But these aircraft are so beautiful that I really will have them built on the shelf one day. But as I said. I want to practice first on some cheaper easier to get aircraft before I even think of tackling these.
On the subject of that I went out today to buy a spool of thin fishingwire. Which is a good thing to start with (and it was cheap).
I kinda figured that they would have used movieprops for the movie itself. Probably the real aircraft have not been built in all that great numbers so slamming a few on terra firma was not really an option with what remained of the survivors. It is already awesome that they still fly.

@ Tom
Really now? I am actually quite surprised to hear that as I heard years ago that they blew up real aircraft in Tora Tora Tora and I have believed it as well for that long. The prop department did quite a good and believable job.

@ Rowan
LOL well I didn't mean to call you old mate. And I can relate to that. When i was a kid we had a small store in the village I grew up that litterally sold everything under the sun. from vases, to bicycles to washing and drying machine and toys. And they had a selection of modelkits as well. And when I saved up enough money (which in my memory always took like 12 centuries to get together) I went there to buy one of those old Airfix kits which were the cheapest they had. My parents allthough they never said it probably rather see me saving up for something more substantial but then again. They were already glad I was sitting at home minding my own business instead of being outside doing bad things.

@ Entoni
I have read on several forums that that Bleriot plane is the rarest of the lot for some reason.
I'm going to do my best on them. But first I have to do some practice models.

Thats' a really nice purchase. A little story, 3 kits of the same model came up on e-bay last week, the first went for £45, the second for £26 (I think to the guy who dropped out of bidding for the first one), then I got the third one for £20 (it was going for a tenner 'till someone bid it up to £20 at the last moment - waiting for the postman to arrive with it now

I found some good pictures of one of the kits here (of the one you don't have (helpful are'nt I, but they are nice snaps)

http://www.mikeashey.com/AIRCRAFT%20GALLERY%20pdf%20FILES/GALLERY-1911-BRISTOL-BOXKITE.pdf

and there is a build log for one of the kits you have, started on Des Delatorres' site.

- If you google for Lindberg kits you will see there is a new site for that company and they do advertise a boxkite, I wonder whether that is from the lifelike/pyro/inpact mould? - and if so, where there is one such kit may there be others in the pipeline? - or maybe Lindberg did a boxkite themselves? I don't think you can actually buy it yet, but theres' a web-site.

I dont have mine yet but looking at the pictures on the above site the wings look a bit thick and "blocky", Ive got a crazy idea in my head to maybe scratch some new ones and use actual fabric.

And as regards the wheels, there is a newish company that now sell ready made spoked wheels, I got some myself, although they are not cheap, and can reccomend them

cheers

.

- If you google for Lindberg kits you will see there is a new site for that company and they do advertise a boxkite, I wonder whether that is from the lifelike/pyro/inpact mould? - and if so, where there is one such kit may there be others in the pipeline? - or maybe Lindberg did a boxkite themselves? I don't think you can actually buy it yet, but theres' a web-site.
[/quote]
NP

The Lindberg kit is the Impact/pyro/LL/etc. in a long line of ancestry (the begats in biblical terms) and the Boxkite is the Impact kit. I got theis from the Lindberg owner himself, at the NY Toy Fair in 2009 or 10. Now look to
Round 2 the new owner.

Captn Tommy