Small Scale Military Headquarters

POST ALL COMIC CON 2014 RELATED THINGS HERE

Was just on the phone with a friend at Con... he checked out the Harrier (he's sending photos soon) while I was on the phone with him.

Notes of interest:

• Retractable Gear
  Moving Exhaust Nozzles (all 4 move together)
  Refueling Prope Extends
  Moving Control Surfaces
  Access panels open and engine panels open to reveal the engine
  The intake blades are super detailed
  Moving Speed Brake
  Included Missiles have fins that rotate out

Merit posted a pic on Facebook... you can see it from a distance but there it is perched on a shelf.



https://www.facebook.com/MeritIntlLtd

I may be going against the grain on this one, but I'm really excited about this Harrier. It's a completely new aircraft in 1:18 scale with a lot of great features. I'm glad they are taking a chance and producing it, and hope it pays off for them and the 1:18 scale community!

Further Harrier pictures being posted on Tweeter via our friends over at The Fighting 1:18th...

https://twitter.com/Fighting118th

Although it's not my first choice (FW190A)...I'll buy one to add to the collection and support the hobby

Here they are! A few photos from my friend! I'll be there Saturday and Sunday, so I'll get some shots too.

Looks like they still have a lot work ahead of them. Especially if they plan on including working lights on the finished model. Is there any word on when they expect to release it or is that still up in the air? The catalog shown earlier specifies 2014-2015 so I suspect it could take a little while longer before we can actually place orders. How's the bottom of the aircraft look? Landing gears? Any shots of inside the cockpit? A video walk through of most if not all of the moving parts in action would be nice to see.

I'll see what I can do Saturday when I'm there. As for release, the rep told my friend later this year (Christmas).

More information in from The Fighting 1:18th at the Merit booth....

http://www.fighting118th.com/forum/289450-post32.html

Looks as if the wing leading edge and LERX have some serious shape issues...

I noticed that as well but I figure I'll just take a dremel to it if its not fixed so it matches up with the photo below. There is also a few critical features not depicted on the model that are missing as well that I'm sure will be addressed before its release. Paint scheme being the most obvious.

Yeah, fixing the LERX shouldn't be too much work, but remodelling the leading edge looks more complicated, as that's related to a change in wing profile - but it's certainly doable if it doesn't get corrected. And the other issues, like the lack of vortex generators shouldn't be too much of an issue to take care of either, if need be. If they release it as a kit, I'd imagine there might also be scope for aftermarket correction/detail sets being issued by other companies. I am looking forward to see how the FW 190 is going to turn out. And is the MiG-15 going to be a new tooling? The post on The Fighting 118th seems to suggest so... I'd go for a newly-tooled MiG-15 - although, if they really went for a new tool, I don't understand why they didn't go for a MiG-17 or -21 instead.

I would prefer one without all of the bells and whistles (moving parts and lights) for less money. Sounds like this release will be a little over 200

If anyone's interested, we have our coverage at (Clicky the Logo to check it out!) in our image galleries. Our front page also has some tidbits and details like our Q&A with Hasbro's Star Wars team, the show's Star Wars Hasbro panel... We're covering some other lines like the Funko ReAction Alien line, Acid Rain, and other 4" scale small companies our readers tend to find interesting.

Galleries are extensive and will be added to further in the next two nights, so stay tuned there for even more.

Any word on the new Halo series?

We didn't cover that line, but I'm sure one of the more broad action figure sites maybe covered it, like TNI or whatnot. I can't imagine it didn't have something new.

Hey guys, I'm back from Con. Had a nice discussion with the guys at Merit. I'll post more about it and actually seeing the Harrier in person a bit later but I have something I need to make sure is posted asap...

THE FW-190 IS READY

Yup. According to Merit, the FW-190 is ready for production and either it is currently, or very very soon will be in production. It wasn't at Comic Con because they thought that the typical Comic Con crowd would rather see a Harrier than a FW-190 (which holds quite a bit of truth to it). But they wanted me to get the point across that the FW-190 is ready. They regretted not bringing the FW-190 after all the reactions on this board and other boards.

For those of you wanting to see the FW-190, it will be at an upcoming action figure show (the exact name of the show escapes me... like ITC or something? IPC? IPS?) so there will be photos of that very soon.

pvanroy wrote:Looks as if the wing leading edge and LERX have some serious shape issues...

It looks like it just needs to be thinned out.

Possibly made this way because of little kids fingers.

The only way to grab this is by the wing root and maybe they were taking this in consideration.

On most of the trailing edges of other 21st aircraft is done in this fasion blunt .

In true 1/18th scale they would be so sharp that the trailing edge would cut you like a knife.

Yes indeed if they would have brought the 190 with them they would have made so much people happy.

By not doing so , speculation ran rapped like a steam locomotive.

I was thinking "strengthened for play" myself. Have to remember these are 100% models; they are meant to withstand some handling.

Not quite. The wing leading edge and LERX are indeed a bit on the thick side, but that's not the main issue. When you look at a frontal view of an AV-8B, you'll see that the wing leading edge has greater anhedral along its inner half, between the fuselage and the small wing fence. Also, in side view, the LERX has a very subtle curvature. Anyway, as said, nothing that can't be corrected, especially if it's released as a kit - but on the other hand, it would be nice to get the right shapes OOB. In the end, itcomes down to the fact that these models are neither fish nor fowl: they're too accurate and detailed to be considered toys, but they lack the level of detail, accuracy and refinement that a dedicated scale modeler generally expects, in part to keep production costs down, but also in large measure to incorporate some toyish features (e.g. retractable LG) that are valued by part of the market for these large scale vehicles. Still, as long as these models are dimensionally correct, they form a good basis for a determined modeler to produce a real show stopper - there are some very impresive examples of that on the Internet.

"THE FW-190 IS READY"

AWESOME NEWS!!!...I am sticking to my promise of getting two or three as well as the Harrier

cool

Wow! glad to know both Harrier and FW-190 still in the plan.

Hoping to see photos of the Harrier all painted up soon. Speaking of photos did anyone take any of the bottom of the aircraft or that of the landing gears extended out? That would be nice to see.

p51 wrote:
For those of you wanting to see the FW-190, it will be at an upcoming action figure show (the exact name of the show escapes me... like ITC or something? IPC? IPS?) so there will be photos of that very soon.

Probably the National IPMS show coming up in August. Can't wait to see the FW