Small Scale Military Headquarters

Arpia IV, you lucky man. I'm sure there are people here who heard from their home harpy "It's me or this too big silly grey thing"

I must be getting too old. I can't see $200 plus for a plastic toy airplane. $150? maybe.

c119box wrote:I must be getting too old. I can't see $200 plus for a plastic toy airplane. $150? maybe.

I agree but I'd still rather pay more for a large, impressive model in plastic than a tiny metal model.

I get sticker shock at the price of diecast small models in 1/72 and 1/48. They can be in the $100 plus range and some aren't all that great in accuracy or detail compared to plastic examples in 1/18. And many are stupid heavy and have thick metal seam gaps and poor fitting plastic accessories.

c119box wrote:I must be getting too old. I can't see $200 plus for a plastic toy airplane. $150? maybe.

Well, if you think of it as a plastic toy airplane, why even pay more than $49.99 for it.

It's not, and although the price seems a bit high, check what other models are going for these days.

Really not a bad deal at all, even with some issues.

Rise from your grave!

Some pics up of a high-vis Japanese exclusive.

http://merit-intl.com/meritnew/index.ph ... =JSI-60032

I'll admit, I'm marginally curious about it, the intended market, and if the load out will be any different.

edit: Went digging, found a listing on hlj.

https://www.hlj.com/product/MER60032/Air

Looks like they got the gunship grey color on the upper wing and fuselage surfaces right this time. It was missing on the S1 plane for some reason...

My question is which scheme is more accurate? Is the S1 Harrier we all got supposed to look like the ones in the pictures Winterstar linked?

tmanthegreat,
I don't really know which camo is more accurate. Googling for pics, I got the impression that the more dark grey (gunship?) colour on the upper surface, looking more like we're used to see on the F-16, is more recent. On other (older?) pics, the Harrier seem's to have a lighter, uniform grey colour, with very few difference if there is any, in comparison with the underside, like the one I now have hanging at my cave's ceilling.
With it's pilot sitting in the cockpit, I'm happy in spite the 300$ spent. But would be glad to find heavier bombs or other loads, the 2 small ones are really a cheap loading.
Looking at Google again, the spanish, italian and british AV-8B II are only light grey. May be Merit is preparing other versions? Why reserving the CF-01 with its red tail only for the japanese market???

granch wrote:tmanthegreat,
I don't really know which camo is more accurate. Googling for pics, I got the impression that the more dark grey (gunship?) colour on the upper surface, looking more like we're used to see on the F-16, is more recent. On other (older?) pics, the Harrier seem's to have a lighter, uniform grey colour, with very few difference if there is any, in comparison with the underside, like the one I now have hanging at my cave's ceiling.

granch,

I'm seeing a similar pattern to what you are observing... But still can't say if Merit got it 100% correct as I'm seeing a lot of variation. Some of the older planes do seem to have a lighter color all around. There had to have been a decision somewhere in the production process where they decided the plane was accurate as it is - or perhaps the Chinese factory failed to do all they wanted...

Hobby Master will be releasing a 1:72 scale model of a VMA-211 Harrier around April 2016... They usually get their paint work accurate and correct, so maybe they have it right? See here: http://www.aikensairplanes.com/av-8b-ha ... -avengers/

Just got a harrier off ebay for 175. Pick up only

rschaap wrote:i have not heard a peep from Merit since the last update a while back. It kinda has everyone scratching their head.

I'm not surprised because of how bad they screwed up the first release. Horrible accuracy. I urinate on the cockpit. How could they mess that up so bad ? I also don't think it sold well and many vendors chose not to purchase them.

They won't release another. It would cost too much money for essentially a new model with only one run.

Beeavision wrote:We don't really have any hard facts from Merit on the gun pod (GAU-12) yet. From the pictures taken at SDCC 2014 and the discussions here on this forum from Black_Dragon_One and a couple of others elsewhere who have had recent run ins with Merit it seems they maybe leaving it off to keep the costs down. Then again I could be wrong. And I very much hope to be for that matter. I think it would give it greater appeal if anything. After all it is a fighter jet. If they do leave it off though it doesn't seem to me to be a feature that hard to fabricate on our own especially if Pickelhaube and some of the talented others here are up to the task of doing on the side.

General Dynamics owns the IP to the GAU-12. I bet Merit did not get permission, or could not afford it.

Axis Nightmare wrote: $240? OUCH!

Will this be a deal breaker for anyone?

Doesn't bode well for the FW-190 but considering the price of the recent re-paints by Flight Wings and repaint MiG-15s over $100, I suppose it's right in line with the skyrocketing prices for newly released 1/18 planes, especially with the amount of time invested in developement.

What's happening is that just like with 21st, the 1/18 scale is a niche, and Merit's 1/18 items are not that popular, so they are expanding into another niche, 1/6. 21st went under because they tried to make a new popular scale hoping others would follow, and it failed. They made too many models of the same tooling and failed to diversify. The 1/18 scale did not catch on and in the last two years, their models stopped selling, retail is a bitch. They spent all that money on models that did not sell and it only took a year for them to run out of money. I see Merit going the same way. 1/18, 1/16, and 1/6 models are all scales with low sales. Low sales mean small runs = expensive models. Not to mention these advanced aircraft have multiple IP owners. The Harrier has General Dynamics, BAE, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Raytheon and others all owning IP rights to the structural, control surface, power plant, munitions, and such. That's a lot of licensing and money to pay out.