[Epapazian]

Originally Posted by theodore

Very nice group of bombers/reconaissance/fighters/transports you have there, Epapazian!! I have a couple of questions: how is one able to obtain any of these and how do some of these compare to the 1:144 series that Altaya/IXO has recently released?

I bought those pictured, above, along with others such as the Wellington, JU-88, Cant Z 1007, Leo. 451, IL-2m, Typhoon, FW-200 , P-39, Tony, MC-202 ,TBF, MS-406, Yak-3, etc., at a time when none of these planes seemed likely to be done by Corgi and neither IXO or Hobby Master had been heard from---about four years ago. By sheer luck, I found an eBay seller and made the transaction via a third party. I have seen a few of these offered for sale on eBay by sellers over the past year, but they are cropping up very infrequently. As far as I know "regular" online sellers and stores didn't handle this line.

As for comparisons with the new Altaya series, it's not really a contest. Altaya's models are far more detailed, better painted and more realistic ---especially where the landing gear are concerned. Assembly is another problem with the Atlas models---- some of mine needed a lot of work in this area. Also, Atlas used difficult -to -apply stick-on decals which were often the wrong color or, when applied by the factory---as with the 1:144th scale bombers---simply misplaced. Oh, I forgot to mention, the Atlas bombers had fixed props, which meant that many lost their blades. On the other hand, Altaya uses much more plastic on its models---usually the wings as well as the tailplanes are plastic. So, in this one area, Atlas wins hands down. Over-all, however,the nod goes to Altaya by a wide margin.