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Aerokits Plans

".... I think this might be one for our 'Dodgygeezer'!? He runs a site with some vintage plans..........Just tried 'em and they don't work.🤔 At best they'll redirect Dodgy's site needs updating!....." Yes, indeed. My sites (unusually for me!) try to comply with current legislation. Very simply, this means that I need to get permission from the rights holder, or declare the item to be an 'orphan'. If you want a discussion of my interpretation of the current copyright legislation, ask for it in a separate thread! In general, where vintage model kits are still being sold, I do not publish plans, since these can be obtained commercially. All the plans which are available for free from my sites either come with explicit written permission from the rights holder, or documented evidence that I have researched the history and found any rights holder to be unavailable. That is the case, for example, for all 'Marinecraft' models, which were created by Model Aerodrome Ltd, merged with (Bournemouth) Ltd, became Stores, and then reverted to Model Aerodrome. At some point in the 1970/80s the kits were discontinued, and Model Aerodrome was sold to an entrepreneur in 1987 who resurrected the business under the name 'ModelZone'. This went bust in 2013, and W.H.Smith bought the name to sell imported model cars under. Their legal department do not seem to know whether with that they also obtained the rights to some model boat plans designed in the 1950s by a company started in the 1930s. Nor do they seem to care. They have, of course, no existing plan data, so as usual I have to reverse engineer from surviving examples.. Tracking this kind of thing is complex, and the Aerokits models have been through a bewildering series of ownership (and claimed ownership). Often this seems to be the same people trading under different names. At the moment SLEC seem to be making (and selling) the kits, while Cornwall Model Boats, Jotika, Lesro and Vintage Model Works and a good few others all distribute them. Of particular interest is Belair, who have an agreement with Colin Smith to produce the old Phil Smith range of kits. But while all these are being commercially provided I will refer plan requests to the rights holders. Tracking all this it time-consuming, but it looks as if I should do a bit of link updating at some point...

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer