The 2021 Big 400 Scale Survey Results
Pt1: Brands & Manufacturers
INTRODUCTION
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The idea of this survey came from a wish to get a better understanding about what the general opinion of active 400 scale collectors is in 2021, across a variety of topics related to the scale. This is partly because I was curious to see how my thoughts aligned with others, partly to get a broad consensus view of people's opinions and partly to get some real raw data that can be used as a benchmark to discuss the scale and combat extreme views held by a vocal minority.
The idea was never to hurt or damage any existing brands and the questions were attempts to make simple, easy to answer enquiries about people's thoughts. There was some criticism of the approach taken with this, such as the lack of multiple choice answers, no ranking questions, or the number of questions being asked. In answer to those I would say that multiple choice answers have limited usefulness for understanding answers to specific questions, ranking questions are not possible with the free software being used and are harder to answer, and I minimised the number of questions to get the the maximum number of responses.
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The questions being asked are also intentionally vague. It is not up to me to put criteria in to determine how people decide, for example, what their favourite brand is. I agree that asking who is best across the board isn't necessarily very scientific but the alternative would be to ask a much larger number of questions about each mould etc. That would have likely led to a lot less responses.
Also this is a survey investigating current active brands and manufacturers not those that no longer make models and have little relevance to new purchases in 2021.
Lastly before I talk about and show the results I want to make it clear this is not my data. These are the opinions of a good chunk of the collectors, at this point in time. You may not like what it says but if you are against the survey results then you are really against collectors.
RESPONDENTS
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The survey was opened on the morning of April 28 and closed at 10am on May 3rd. Across those five and a half days 571 responses were gathered. Google Forms has no mechanism to limit responses by ip address and so I asked for e-mail addresses (especially after I saw some unusual voting patterns with the first 20 or so responses when I didn't). This doesn't necessarily mean that every answer is from someone different, however looking at the e-mails I am happy the vast majority are valid. Certainly duplicates are not enough to have an impact on the results.
Given that most 400 scale releases are made nowadays with production runs of 160-500 I think 571 responses is a good return and shows a statistically viable cross-section of English speaking collectors, certainly the majority of active and regular collectors anyway. Responses were gathered via the website, Facebook Groups, Instagram posts, model forums and my mailing list so it is a broad range of collector's responding.
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Thank you to everyone who took part.
Results & Analysis
Q1: WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE 400 SCALE BRAND?
This question was a little controversial as it only allowed for a single answer and I am generally not in favour of the concept of 'best'. Yes, every brand can be judged differently on each aircraft mould, or even competing releases, but I wanted to get a general feeling of sentiment towards the current brands and avoid the detail asking about each mould would need, especially as my site already has loads of that sort of information published anyway (see mould reviews, model reviews, detailed mould comparisons) and it is not usually under a lot of debate if you look at the moulds properly - as I do.
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The results are a comprehensive victory for NG Models, which is no real surprise given the quality of their releases and their attitude towards collectors. JC Wings did well also, which is an illustration of how much they have improved with new moulds and customer engagement in recent times. Aeroclassics has a strong following, especially I suspect among older classics collectors, and good brand loyalty.
Gemini and Phoenix do less well, perhaps representative of their response to competition and lack of customer engagement? Aviation400 and Panda are unsurprisingly too small to make much of an impact in this type of question, although the fact AV400 is only 2 votes from Phoenix is rather telling.
The 15 votes in the other category were spread across people who didn't like the question, chose non-current brands (Dragon, Jet-X, Big Bird all got 1 vote, Witty Wings got 2) or selected niche new brands (Prairie Wings and El Aviador both got 1 vote too).
Q2: WHO HAS THE BEST PRINTING DETAIL?
Unlike moulds the level of printing detail is generally rather standard across brands if you're paying attention for it. I could have perhaps also asked a question about colour, although I suspect the answers would be very similar.
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The results here show an even greater swing towards NG Models, which once again given their quality and market share is no real surprise. JC Wings and Aviation400 do very well too. Although I am not surprised that Phoenix did the least well here I am surprised that Gemini did so poorly considering their printing detail is pretty much the same as JC Wings. Then again this is perhaps a limitation of the question type allowing for only a single choice and not a ranking. If you had to rank printing quality I doubt Panda or Gemini would be so low but the tools available didn't allow me to provide a question like that.
Q3: WHO HAS THE WORST PRINTING DETAIL?
The answers to this question show that there are a significant number of collectors who don't think about comparing brands directly or feel they don't have the knowledge to do so. That makes sense and so when looking at the answers it is worth taking that into account.
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Even so, it is not surprising that Aeroclassics and Phoenix come in with the most votes. Phoenix barely print anything on the underside of their models (including gear doors) and Aeroclassics do not bother with a lot of detail printing either (such as nosecone rings, panel lines or even cargo doors). Once again the high number of votes for Gemini suggests a general unhappiness with that brand as I have found they actually have a high-quality of printing detail comparable to JC Wings (who only got 9 votes). The people voting for NG, Panda or AV400 here were obviously off their meds!
Q4: WHO HAS THE BEST AIRCRAFT MOULDS?
I spend a lot of time looking at brands individual moulds so I think I know who has the best for specific aircraft types, however this question asked people to consider the mould catalogue for a brand and take a view across it to decide who they thought had the best moulds in general. That doesn't mean the biggest number of moulds but the best quality across the type's available.
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The reality is NG Models have an almost brand new catalogue of moulds and they are all great, so it isn't a surprise they win comfortably. JC Wings do well again, presumably because they have in recent years heavily updated their most commonly used moulds such as the A350, 747, 777 and 787, plus have introduced the flaps down concept. Aeroclassics also do well, as they ought to given the excellent classic moulds they have for types such as the 707, 737-200, DC-8s, DC-9s, DC-10s etc. Considering their smaller size AV400 also do well.
Q5: WHO HAS THE WORST AIRCRAFT MOULDS?
The opposite of question 4 is a rather blunt instrument I admit, but by comparing the results of 4 and 5 I think a fair picture emerges of people's general thoughts about the moulds used by different brands. Clearly people are also more willing to have a positive opinion rather than a critical one since there were a lot more 'don't know' answers with this question.
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Personally given their very large catalogue of moulds I think it is a little unfair for Gemini to get the wooden spoon here, however I suspect that it is a response to them continuing to use some older moulds such as their 747-400, 777s and 787s when JC Wings has a superior alternative that seemingly could be used. It doesn't surprise me Phoenix do poorly too as even their newer moulds are not impressive and their 747-400 stinks. I'd have thought Aeroclassics collects some protest votes due to the unwillingness to modify existing moulds, improve tyre hubs or add 'out of scale gimmicks', which everyone else does.
Q6-10: SCORE THE 5 LARGEST 400 SCALE BRANDS OUT OF TEN
The last 5 questions asked for scorings out of ten for each of the top 5 brands. Personally I think giving 1 or 10 for any brand is a bit OTT, but I'm obviously alone as there were plenty of high scores given. Also note some tactical voting which meant NG Models scored more 1 out of 10s than anyone else.
These are the graphs directly from Google:
These are the graphs directly from Google:
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So once again NG Models have a clear lead in terms of getting scored from 1-10 and the results show good correlation with others in the survey and demonstrate that the scores in questions 1 - 5 have not been heavily impacted by being asked as single answer questions. Despite Gemini's low average score they clearly have a large number of fans, but mainly in the middle ranges, and the same can be said of Aeroclassics and Phoenix. It's not that people don't like or buy their models - they just don't rate them as highly as NG and JC in general.
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SUMMARY
I am not terribly surprised by the results in this survey. My only surprise is how well NG Models do in the last section compared to older brands. I am also pleased to see that the efforts JC Wings has been putting into 400 scale in recent years are paying off. Gemini Jets and Phoenix have clearly been punished in the results for some of the products they have been bringing to market in the past few years compared to the competition. For Gemini I would hazard their attitude towards collectors, which has at times been both threatening, rude and/or dismissive hasn't helped them either. Aeroclassics clearly has a core following (including myself) but also has room for improvement.
Phoenix barely engage with collectors so I doubt there will be much of a response from them. I'm not expecting Gemini or Aeroclassics to make changes based upon this survey, in fact I suspect blowback rather than engagement. That is their prerogative and wasn't the point of the survey anyway. However, you'd have thought any 400 scale brand would be wise to pay attention to the people buying their models.
In no way am I suggesting you don't collect all these brands. That is not what the survey is for. Just because a brand doesn't score as well as another it doesn't mean they make bad models. I buy from all of the brands and manufacturers and they all produce excellence and all make mistakes. However what the survey illustrates is a good cross-section of the views of collectors in 2021, regardless of whether they are right or wrong.
In part 2 we will look at the results of the second survey to learn more about the collector body, see what collector's collect and what they'd like to see in the future. Hopefully that is something all the manufacturers will pay close attention to.
Phoenix barely engage with collectors so I doubt there will be much of a response from them. I'm not expecting Gemini or Aeroclassics to make changes based upon this survey, in fact I suspect blowback rather than engagement. That is their prerogative and wasn't the point of the survey anyway. However, you'd have thought any 400 scale brand would be wise to pay attention to the people buying their models.
In no way am I suggesting you don't collect all these brands. That is not what the survey is for. Just because a brand doesn't score as well as another it doesn't mean they make bad models. I buy from all of the brands and manufacturers and they all produce excellence and all make mistakes. However what the survey illustrates is a good cross-section of the views of collectors in 2021, regardless of whether they are right or wrong.
In part 2 we will look at the results of the second survey to learn more about the collector body, see what collector's collect and what they'd like to see in the future. Hopefully that is something all the manufacturers will pay close attention to.