[1250ships]

Just thinking about this and happened to go over to Tricatus' site to check on some models offered for sale here. And it hit me that the first thing Hornby should do is offer to sponsor the site and hire Tim to take all their offical model photos for the AA range. Then I'd know they were serious.

[Gary Kennedy]

That's a good suggestion 1250 - I've frequently used Tritacus to audition potential new buys, and I think in some respects it has helped Corgi make more than a few sales.

It's good that Hornby at least bothered to reply to the query which began the thread, and that they are positive about keeping the Aviation Archive going. I don't yet have an opinion on how it will turn out with Hornby. It feels a good fit, Hornby do seem to know and understand what makes adults pay out good money for what the unitiated might call 'toys', but that we know are scale replicas! Their main business of trains seems to be solid, and their racing car sets also look to be doing well. I never had a train or racing set that lasted long into New Year as a child, so I'm hoping that it will be third time lucky for me with Corgi!

It might depend whether they will view the aircraft as a separate line to the Airfix kits they also do. Again back in my youth Airfix had a very good reputation and their range was absolutely astounding. Course back then there was no internet and few outlets for people to voice dissatisfaction with products, research, decals or the other 101 things that sometimes get dissected these days. If they treat the AA range as a distinct product line and give it some of the support that other areas of the business have, there's every reason to be hopeful. If they decide that they just wanted to buy the moulds and release a shed load of paint schemes with no investment beyond a few Ospreys to cull them from then we will have seen the end of a brief era.

I'm hoping they might have got the message that people will buy new stuff if they make new stuff. Corgi did seem to be going down that road with a batch of new stuff for 2008 I was looking forward to (like the Blenheim and the 110), which we might not see now.

If the worse comes to the worse, and it looks like Hornby aren't giving proper consideration to the AA range, perhaps we should use this forum and the UK one to try and convince them that it is a range worth supporting and people will buy stuff if they are prepared to give it a shot in the arm every few years.

I'm hoping it will turn out good for Hornby and the collectors but suspect we won't know for another year or so how things are developing.

Gary