The chief appeal for this kit, I suspect, will be for someone for whom the Camel is their all time favourite WW1 aircraft and they want to make it the centrepiece of their display area or hobby room.
Unless Hasegawa plans more in this scale it could be somewhat of an orphan model- neither one scale nor another. The price compared with other current Hasegawa prices, is surprisingly low which suggests Hasegawa knows they may have a fight to get sales for this oddity.
Revell learned years back that oddball scales don't appeal unless there's a collection in that scale. The Revell 1/28th Camel, Dr.1, Spad and (years later) Fokker D.VII sold okay but these four were as far as you could take a 1/28th collection.
Roden and Wingnuts and others have given us a glittering assortment of 1./32 scale high quality WW1 kits and while the Hasegawa Camel looks very interesting, I suspect its appeal may be more limited than we think. Hasegawa's museum standard 1/8th scale Camel, SE5a etc way back in the past were pricey and thus out of most modeller's pockets. I would have preferred them to give us a range of 1/32 scale WW1 subjects or 1/48th.
Sadly my first reaction on seeing the Camel images was "Where would I put it?" The same reason I don't have a Wingnuts Gotha - yet ( though resistance is weakening!)
Dave Wilson
Gold Coast
Australia
