Aircraft interior

[Oliver Bennett]

Since Airfix is doing alot of aircraft interior detail, what is the possibility to reproduce cockpits/nose sections, radar or nav stations in 1/24 or bigger?

What do you think?

[Ratch]

I don't see a big enough market.

[Frederick Kullas]

Was it Italeri who did big scale cockpit interiors?

I remember a P-38 Lightning and a F-104 Starfighter cockpit

Maybe about 1/8 or 1/16 scales?

Long OOP afaik

I dunno if they sold well but they are still in demand and attract some high prices for them

Airfix could just sell the frames for the 1/24 Hawker Typhoon cockpit parts as a stand-alone kit, grinning

[Timothy Huff]

I agree with Ratch that if injection-moulding used for aircraft interior models, it's not reasonable to suppose there would be an adequate market, although for some subjects that might in time build. However, with the advent of, and ever increasing performance/lowering cost of 3d printing, there's no reason for Airfix to continue with only offering injection-moulded models. This is a very similar enthusiasm for internal areas of the partial aircraft eg a Spitfire cockpit, or Lancaster tail turret etc, so evidently there's some interest in the notion of larger-scale partial models such as the OP describes in this thread.

[Ratch]

I didn't say anything about injection moulding.

My point was (and is) that there would not be the volume of sales required to justify the investment.

[Timothy Huff]

I didn't say anything about injection moulding.

My point was (and is) that there would not be the volume of sales required to justify the investment.

 

 

I appreciate that you did not expressly, discuss injection-moulding. That said, the statement you did make on the lack of relative sales not justifying the type of model, is in fact implicitly predicated (but unstated) on the tooling costs being the normal costs of injection models. So once you're using a production-method without the enormous tooling costs of injection-moulding, then it may become feasible to produce kits with small, or "as required" production runs. At which point, the mathematics of at what number of sales a model produced in full, or in part, via 3d-printed parts changes from that of the case of a more orthodox injection-moulded kit.

 

 

I don't think, that with a new treatment of aircraft models, one can easily forecast how well such a new model type will do, if such a forecast is based on a different type of model. In the 1940's, models were hand-made in wood, but with the advent of post-war plastic models, and entirely new mass-market hobby was born. In other words, the advent of the physical kit, drove the new hobby. My point is that we have a generation of modellers who are retiring, who were perhaps plastic-modellers in the 1960's and 70's. After 50 years making 1/72 (complete) models of aircraft, it's possible that they may, if provided with decent large scale interior models of favoured subjects, adopt making such models with some enthusiasm, just as some wooden-model makers went over to plastic in the 1950's and 60's. We don't know until it's tried, but it's an error not to innovate in my view, especially if the tooling costs are so low in this case, relatively speaking.

[Kenneth ONeill]

Er, injection moulding is way the cheapest way of producing an entire airframe. No-one seems to make vacuum forms any more disappointed_relieved and casting (resin or white metal) and 3D printing techniques are very labour intensive.

[Timothy Huff]

Er, injection moulding is way the cheapest way of producing an entire airframe. No-one seems to make vacuum forms any more disappointed_relieved and casting (resin or white metal) and 3D printing techniques are very labour intensive.

 

 

Hi, I quite appreciate that as you state, injection moulded models are cheaper for any given model, compared with 3d printing, however, this only holds true when there are volume sales, as the tooling costs of making the moulds are extremely expensive. I was suggesting that cast or 3d printed resin was cheaper for a short production run, such as one might make for a speculative model, for example where the model-making public have not had the chance to build a new type of model. Put another way, in the absence of a marketing data, 3d printed or resin parts allows the market to be tested without the considerable financial out-lay required for tooling an injection mould.

 

 

Airfix have been making the same type of model, namely modelling the entirety of aircraft tanks or ships for 50+ years, and the scale of those (whole) models determines the achievable detail in the kit. What I'm suggesting is that modern techniques, it should be possible to cheaply test the market for a new type of kit, based on specific parts of what would otherwise be a huge model if treated as a whole aircraft/vehicle kit.

 

 

Suggestions:

 

 

1. Cut-away of Bismark's main armament turret with below decks magazine etc.

2. Various RAF gun-turrets, FN5, FN5a, FN20, FN50, FN4, and various Boulton Paul turrets

3. Cockpits (possibly nose as well?) of aircraft, Spitfire, Wellington, Hampden, Lanc, Mossie, B17, 109e. He111, Ju87, Bf110 etc.

4. Aircraft lifts from carriers, tank-turrets (cut away) and so forth.

 

 

The common theme of these being having a much more detailed model, possibly with moving-parts, and, where possible, allowing other hobbies to make use of these models for other purposes - such as the radio-control flying hobby to make use of suitably scaled turrets - I suggest 1/6th scale - on flying models, with the initial market testing of these models being kept nice and cheap via not going straight to injection-moulded parts.

 

 

I trust that makes more sense now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ratch]

Quote: "Hi, I quite appreciate that as you state, injection moulded models are cheaper for any given model, compared with 3d printing, however, this only holds true when there are volume sales, as the tooling costs of making the moulds are extremely expensive. I was suggesting that cast or 3d printed resin was cheaper for a short production run, such as one might make for a speculative model, for example where the model-making public have not had the chance to build a new type of model. Put another way, in the absence of a marketing data, 3d printed or resin parts allows the market to be tested without the considerable financial out-lay required for tooling an injection mould."

But the Airfix business model is for volume sales. Short run items are left to the cottage industries and after market. Airfix don't want to get involved with that side of the business.

[Timothy Huff]

Quote: "Hi, I quite appreciate that as you state, injection moulded models are cheaper for any given model, compared with 3d printing, however, this only holds true when there are volume sales, as the tooling costs of making the moulds are extremely expensive. I was suggesting that cast or 3d printed resin was cheaper for a short production run, such as one might make for a speculative model, for example where the model-making public have not had the chance to build a new type of model. Put another way, in the absence of a marketing data, 3d printed or resin parts allows the market to be tested without the considerable financial out-lay required for tooling an injection mould."

But the Airfix business model is for volume sales. Short run items are left to the cottage industries and after market. Airfix don't want to get involved with that side of the business.

 

 

If I may, that's rather an old-fashioned business model. It makes sense before (say) 2000, when other means of producing plastic parts for kits did not really exist, but it's now that such low volume production is possible to test kits for marketing or assembly testing, it's just nuts to say "all we do is volume production" and therefore lose the ability to speculatively produce kits using different technology (ie 3d printing) to assess how well a model may do prior to volume production.

 

 

Essentially you're stating that Airfix won't explore other kit types because they've always done volume production. I'm saying that there's no reason why they can't continue to do volume production, but ALSO use different production techniques to produce "Limited edition" (as it were) kits, to test the waters, prior to going to all the tooling costs of making an injection mould.

 

 

I think that the latter is smarter, than the former. The more flexible approach provides both useful data, as well as breathing some new life into the type of kits they make, and the detail within them, because the scope of scale of the partial model is more conducive to detail than of the same subject modelled as a whole. EG, a 6" high RAF gun-turret is something you might like to model, but a 3/8ths" (as part of a whole aircraft) offers little such scope for detail....