Wingnut Wings now showing the RE.8 "Harry Tate" is sold out.

http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/product?productid=3003

Cheers,
Eric

Major bummer - haven't acquired or had a pleasure of building one... Looks like I'll need to pay the price if I am to...

Slim chance that it's another one of them WnW glitches - like the one that showed a number of kits Out of Stock last spring

Bet not...

Good bye, old friend we hardly knew yeough...

(Quote) Slim chance that it's another one of them WnW glitches - like the one that showed a number of kits Out of Stock last spring

ALAS NO! I received an email circular from WNW this morning confirming it is "Sold Out" and not a glitch ala the one they had earlier this year when quite a few showed as 'Sold Out'. They say the RE8 will reappear on an unspecified date in the future with etch and figures as a 'special edition' set......but they also said that as well about the other two kits that have now been OOP for the best part of 2 years didn't they.

Given the plethora of aftermarket and superb 1/32 WW1 figs to compliment these WNW kits that have become available in the interim since WNW went into production, I wonder why they would release these 'specials' with etch and figures as IMHO, they have 'missed the boat' on that one.

Hope you manage to eventually track one down.
Gary

So we now have 3 kits in total as "Out of Stock"? Just checking if I've missed anything else...

Yes, I have also gotten the figures + extra PE Special Edition re-release as reply to the inquire about Hansa-Brandenburg come back... That kit, originally priced at $89, is going for $220-$250 second hand, so I'm not sure what's standing in the way of some sort of limited upgrade / re-release. I don't suppose it's need too much of an edition change - maybe new schemes, new box art, heck knows what?

On one side, limited release kits ensure that modelers are quick to pick up their favorites and supplier (in this case WnW themselves) is not sitting on stocks of "I'll get it next Christmas, cause they will always be around"...

The flipside of this behavior produces "the hoarders" - buy at one price, wait for Out Of Stock notification, then dump for tripple the price few years later...

I have quite a few builds awaiting before the RE8 and I think I'm just SOL on that one. There is other fish in the sea.

Some good points well made. Without wishing to sound negative however, I would not place too much faith in WNW releasing any of those OOP kits any time soon - if at all.

They have a very active release schedual averaging about 7 - 8 kits a year thus far in the 5 years they have been going, coupled to which, they also have numerous subjects projected for the future still to be tooled and marketed. As such, they have plenty to be going on with R&D wise for a relatively small operation. These 'special boxings' were also announced 5 years ago when they started and so far, nothing has materialised and not a single figure (other than the pre painted ones) offered up for sale despite being visible on the website in all that time as well.

More importantly, I think given this is Sir Peter Jackson's 'baby' and a 'modelers dream' indulgence on his part of his love of WW1 aircraft and models, I don't think profit will be as prime a motivator to get kits back into production as other companies who have shareholders to consider or operate to profit driven incentives and projects. If you think about it, to have a second production run means all the packaging, printing, marketing, tooling setup etc have to be reactivated and how many kits would a second production run sell to make it worth the while? They would sell quite a few to people such as yourself who missed out on the first run......then how many would they sell after the initial rush? I would hazzard a guess that of all the kits now OOP, the last few of each of the 3 kits were sold on a "trickle" basis before the last one was eventually sold rather than a 'here today, gone tomorrow' limited run release.

I hope I am wrong but ultimately, the months and years ahead will determine that one.

Gary

Right - I am sometimes at awe just how many WWI and early aviation subjects are there to begin with and how little of a percentage that are actually made into scale models... There are literally hundreds of planes that were produced and served in numbers (and that's not counting X-planes)

Left to looking towards the future, though if the past comes with a missed opportunity - I won't complain either