Ah, those were the days... when each year a new glossy catalogue would come out; but you never got anything more than those pencil-style sketches.
And the kit numbers would be listed and find their way onto retailers online shops, understandably so, it created the illusion that they would have the kit first etc etc.
My personal biggest disappointment was the non-appearance of the Staaken R.VI R.30. If you don't know about this machine, you should look it up; it had an extra engine purely to supercharge the others, for altitude performance. It's the one in Haddow and Grosz's R-planes book with imaginary 'Fletcher's World' markings for its part in a post war film. Yes, so two different marking schemes would have been possible.
True, I never heard any hint that it was coming, but if you look closely at the sprues for, I believe, the first Roden R.VI kit of the R.27, you can spot unused parts that could only have been intended for the R.30. Shame! No, it really does seem that Roden has given up on the Great War, but at least we've had some lovely stuff from them on the way.
Mark
