Las Vegas is not my kind of town, but it is where GeminiJets is located. I picked up my son, Wynter, after his hiking trip in the mountains of Utah and we spent a day at the Grand Canyon before continuing west. I had never been to the Grand Canyon before and it is as spectacular as they say it is. I hope come back some day to spend more time. Las Vegas on the other hand is not a place I need to go again. Wynter and I walked the strip in the evening and checked out the famous Casinos. They were fascinating to see and I enjoyed the people watching, but I had no desire to gamble. This morning, the 29th, I’m happy to leave the hotel and head south of town to visit GeminiJets. This is more to my liking. The location of this business is ideal with a great view of the Las Vegas airport and the constant traffic of Southwest, Continental and more flights, along with a regular stream of corporate jets.
To all my customers who are collectors of 1:400 airline models, the rise of GeminiJets (see all Gemini models) in the last ten years to being the number one producer of scale airliner models comes as no surprise. The owner, Eliot, is a man who lives and breathes airliners and all models have to meet his stringent standards before they go to production. One of the reasons they have been so successful is the steadiness of their production and ability to stick to the delivery schedules they announce. With that in mind Eliot would not let me know what models were coming up in the future. Both because he doesn’t want the competition to find out what he is doing and because he doesn’t want to promise a model and then have it not come to production. Fair enough, holding the cards close is good business sense and works both to the benefit of me as a retailed and my customers as collectors.
We did discuss the spectacular success of the new 1:200 lines. These models have been selling fast and the early releases are sure to be desirable collectors models in the near future. Check out the new 1:200 models that just arrived a couple of weeks ago and the next round coming up in August.
For the warbird collector, the GeminiAces 1:72 series is also one of the best new lines. The release schedule is not as steady with these models, but more are coming, so stay tuned.
Day 13, July 29, 2008 – Afternoon
In the same day that I visited GeminiJets, I finally made it to California and stopped to visit with Dragon Models in LA. (It wasn’t until the next day that I got to stick my feet in the Pacific Ocean after having driving over 5500 miles). The two newest model variations that Dragon has done are the models with mini-dioramas. In the warbird lines models come with bunkers, compass platforms, etc These dioramas were a bit slow to sell at first, but are gaining in popularity as collectors become familiar with these well down landscapes (see all 1:72 Dragon Wings models).
In the airliner line there are now airport terminal sets with the models. The variations of the airport sets fit together to make a terminal building and ramp layout. The quality of the ramp pieces and terminal buildings is not equal to the mat set and terminal building available from GeminiJets. On the other hand the GeminiJets sets are quite expensive and take up a lot of space, so for the collector wanting to place airline models on a book shelf or small case the pieces for Dragon Wings work very well.In my discussions with my rep, John Dizak, at Dragon it is clear to me that I am missing the boat on a lot of other lines offered by Dragon, not in diecast, but in model building. So look for a new website coming in the next few months supplying model kits from Dragon, Hasegawa, etc, and also books from Concorde and Signal Publications.
Flight Miniatures is also retooling to keep up with the competition in plastic snap-fit models. Flight Miniature models (formerly Long Prosper) have been around for nearly twenty years and were the top of the line until a few years ago, when companies like Hogan Wings and Skymarks raised the bar in weight, detail, and feel of this style of model. Not a company to stay static, Flight Miniatures has come out with some new designs, the AN-124 and 787 and will be doing even more in the coming year. In some ways Flight Miniatures is not directly in competitio
n with Hogan Wings and Skymarks as they shoot for a better price point, but their aim is a quality product and that is what they deliver. The packaging may not be as nice, but the models are worth every penny. The view from the company’s Cottonwood, AZ office was just spectacular as well. I sure wouldn’t mind that view out my office window.
Wing Aero is a main supplier of mine for pilot supplies. As I stated in my last blog,