[PH-LKK]

1/500 isn't going anywhere. We've lost StarJets, and Schuco keeps knocking about (saying they will enter the fray ... someday), but Herpa is a huge presense (bigger than all of the 1/400 guys put together). I have always favored 1/400 myself, and am actually going to be selling off all of my 1/500 stuff. If I were to continue with 1/500, I'd definitely stick close to Inflight, and probably only pick up an occassional Herpa (like their new Il-76). I've never been particularly impressed with Herpa, and liked StarJets a lot. Too bad StarJets never really caught on in Europe, where Herpa is king. They (StarJets) had a marketing deal with Schuco near the end, and for a couple of years Schuco distributed both Gemini Jets (in 1/400 scale) and StarJets (in 1/500) in Europe under the Schuco name (both Gemini Jets and StarJets were distributed in the U.S. by ADI). Still, the older BigBird 1/500 stuff is the nicest stuff out there, IMHO, as detailed as its 1/400 siblings, but at Herpa's smaller scale. Simply outstanding. I believe Inflight's 1/500 scale 747 toolings came from BigBird, so you know they're going to be good.

As I mentioned above, in 1/400 land, I definitely favor AeroClassics, and to a lesser extent Gemini Jets. BigBird400 is probably the most reliable in terms of quality, assuming you can be sure that you're getting a "real" BigBird400. Gemini Jets has had some trouble maintaining the consistency of its quality (possibly as a result of its relatively large runs of 1500 per model).

1/400 is a relatively small world. Think about it. Gemini Jets used to have runs of 2500, but unsold stock was piling up. Now the standard run is 1500. And AeroClassics generally sticks to runs between 400 and 500, with some runs as low as 50. And still, these things don't sell out immediately.

We all saw what happened to the FM Galland 262, and that was a run of 262. And a Corgi run of as much as 1000 is considered quite low. It's a different market entirely.

If you want to know more, there are a couple of forums with loads more information. Wings900, the Diecast Aircraft Forum, 400scalehangar, and AirlineBUZZ are just four that pop to mind. The first focuses more on 1/500, the others on 1/400, but they all have members who are devoted to scales ranging from 1/600 to 1/200.