With the new Salmson from Gaspatch and Eduard's impressive SPAD XIII in 1/48 scale we really need some AMERICAN groundcrew/pilot figures. the only ones that I have seen are the Rickenbacker/ Luke ones in the Eduard American Eagles Spad kit, unfortunately both of these guys are not in flight gear and are posed from photographs. Some USAS ground crew working on the guns, loading a camera or small bombs, and some pilots in flight gear would be nice sets.
Perhaps several different sets for various countries such as French and Italian would also be good. It seems that 90% of the figures made recently are either British or German.
Another idea would be to offer sets to build a "mini diorama", I remember in the early 1990's a company named Van's Models did a set with 4 or 5 figures that was supposed to be the death of Richthofen, it had a dead MvR laying on the ground and several Australian soldiers looking for souvenirs. Unfortunately I was never able to get this set and have never seen it since. They had other sets like French pilots and soldiers, and probably also German and British ones, with a mix of men including helmeted soldiers with rifles and gear, which could be very useful in small dioramas especially when modeling crashed aircraft.
Hope this gets the creative juices flowing.
Dave
