Thank goodness I managed to get my FJ-3
Kitty Hawk/Panda have announced they are shutting down. One of the principals posts at Large Scale Planes and state "we are selling the kits on-hand, there are no new molds."
You can bet the price of the FJ-3 has just gone up, so if you're a NavAir fan, don't delay. The kit is good (though it will be much better with the Caracal Decals coming this month).
The only thing that surprises me here is that it happened today, rather than any other day.
UPDATE: Just saw a post from another modeler at The Other Place that the price of an FJ-3 he was following at eBay went up overnight from $55 to $75.
UPDATE #2 - just saw that Sprue Bros still has the kit at $48.75 and listed "in stock." I'd scurry over there if I was you and you want one.
Their 1/32 Bronco (among others) was super!
Hope someone will take care of their molds (as it usually happens...).
If you want to place any bets on the future of the molds, I'd put my money on Trumpeter, for any number of reasons. (No, this not "insider knowledge" just an informed guesstimate/WAG)
That’s some disturbing news. Were there any indications of things to come before this announcement? I for one am taken by surprise
If you'd ever gotten to know their designer (I have), you would not find this surprising at all.
I saw that over at HS. I remarked that I’m glad to have gotten their Banshee parts to go with my Rieth kit! Also glad I have a Twogar and RF-101 in the stash.
Best hurry on that FJ-3
That's a shame. They produced some really nice kits. Hopefully Trumpeter or Hobby Boss will rebox their better kits. I really want to get a second 1/32 P-39 so I can do both American and Soviet versions. If Trumpeter takes things on, Maybe prices will come down. They don't seem to have their own website. Does anyone know where they are clearing out their existing kits? BTW, thanks for the heads-up on the closure, Tom.
Thanks for the info, Tom (tcinla). I am really sad to see these companies go under. I thought that the manufacturers were having a good year thanks to the pandemic, but obviously not.
The ones who do things right are having a great time.
It is only slightly upsetting news because Panda armor kits were decent as opposed to many of the Kitty Hawk plane kits (especially the early ones) which were infuriating based on what I have read.
Disappointing because I was looking forward to their Su-25 Frogfoot kit in the hopes it would be better than the venerable KP kit.
Sad news.
Sure glad I picked up Kittyhawk’s XF5U-1 Flying Flapjack and built it. Guess we’ll never see that in 1:48 scale ever again. As Freddie sang “Another one bites the dust”, although it sounds like this was self inflicted.
Through dumb luck, I had just ordered 2 of the FJ-3s from Sprue.
Lucky you! They're gone gone gone there now! Since I have one, let me tell you that you will definitely want to run over to Caracal Decals and order one or both of the FJ-3 sheets he's done that will be arriving in about 10 days, since decals are the worst part of the kit (like, for instance, not one of the FJ-3M option has a - wait for it - BuNo in the FJ-3M range). There's always one part of the kit that still puts them down in (Sh)ittyhawk.