Newsletter n°01

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This is our first newsletter about the Bizerte project. We will improve it soon, with additional news and pictures. We are mainly testing here the list of users. You are receiving it because you registered for (at least) one kit of a Bizerte in 1/72 nd scale.

1 - Meeting with Special Hobby in Nuremberg :
1.1 Technical points

  • To make it short, SH is not too enthusiastic about the project, they think we are going on an important investment for a rrisk higher than the ones we woud get on many small or medium sized projects. We can't say they are wrong on this point.
  • They also think the plane is complicated and bears two technical risks, the first on the hull (angle on hull which might cause a breaking in the mould), the second on struts, particularly the ones bearing the engines, the architecture is quite complex. Here also, we can't say the reasoning is wrong.
  • In conclusion, SG requests six months to theorically study the project and limit the technical risks we have seen above.

So we will decide in autumn. We will not request any money before the official launch of the project.

Let's see the positive point : we are going to a lengtier survey of the market and should get more subscribers, but the final delivery will come later.

1.2 Engines (and Saigon)
We have to add we would like to prepare the setting of alternate engines that were used :

  • on the prototype (differed from the ones used on the serie)
  • on an other machine, during trials (Hispano Suiza), that proved not too successful

but this HS Bizerte kept her engines during some time, as well as the prototype (which might have kept them until the end). So preparing the installation of these alternate engines will also result in a more complicated project (specially on engines - already complicated enough).

We DON'T plan to provide the alternate engines in the standard boxes.

Same thing for the Saigon : we will prepare to go quite simply to the Saigon (civilian version of the Bizerte) but will not provide the parts.

1.3 Boxart
This doesn't prevent us to progress on the boxart, we would reuse it for the book we are preparing on the Bizerte (in french !). The investment will not be lost.

You might have seen it in the site : www.frrom.com, we requested the boxart for the first box , we go for plane n°18, hull code E12, name LE GRAND COUREUR, escadrille E1, Berre, 1937. She wears the wolf head badge.

Schedule : we should get it in around one month and a half (more or less)

2 - Other topics - the book
You may also register for the Bizerte book (at reduced price - with subscription of a kit). The six month study requested by Special Hobby will allow us to progress on the book, we should get it in six months, at least in autumn. The author Gérard Bousquet is back to work (he was injured in riding his motocycle), he will put some order in the Bizerte pictures, put them into the book chapters and give the captions (after finishing some urgent works). We will request in parallel the profiles and layout of the book, the tentative schedule is :

  • photos by chapter, captions given, 15 th to 30 th march, 2016
  • realization of additionnal profiles, from 1 st of April
  • book layout, starting on 1 st of April
  • proofreading and corrections on first chapters, from 15 th of May
  • Printing, realease at latest in Autumn

For sure we will send in parallel to SH the detailed photos of the Bizerte, it should help them to decide.

We will put in the website, soon, the photo of "Le Grand Coureur" that will be used for the boxart (already published in Les Ailes Françaises)