About Me and contact info

MORE ABOUT ME & CONTACT DETAILS

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SMAKR
PO Box 411
WHYALLA SA 5600
Australia

Here is a little bit of background about myself plus further contact information below. My name is Mark and I lived in Adelaide, South Australia for my first 34 years - a beautiful and picturesque city that many may only describe as being nothing more than an oversized big town in spite of Adelaide being the capital city (our city population is just over 1 million) of South Australia.

At that point in my life I took a massive punt, embarking upon a life changing experience in resigning from a very safe commonwealth government job I had held for 16 years to branching out in a new field and a new industry, and relocating from the city to a country town - Whyalla, South Australia. The town boasts a population just over 22,000 and is reliant heavily on the steelworks (no that is not the industry I went to) and so its "red dust" reputation often proceeds it. But the town is an oasis in the desert with all the facilities of a city and some of the most accessible outback country, places to camp and 4WD just a few kilometres from the town, 360 degree views from lookout points, regular Emu, Kangaroo and other wildlife visits or encounters, a million stars every night, the most magnificent climate (outside of summer!) that sees more than 300 sunny days a year and a relaxed lifestyle people only dream of. Have never felt more safe about living somewhere and can't see myself leaving from here for a while yet! If you want to find out more about this town, log onto www.whyalla.com and have a look around!

I received my first model kit when I was five and with the help of my father, constructed one of many to come! The aircraft was a Spitfire and I remember it being big and looking back it must have been 1/32 scale (or perhaps it was the Airfix 1/24??). Next came a Hawker Typhoon - which I now know was 1/48 scale (as I only got rid of it a few years before starting SMAKR) and it was much smaller than the Spitfire, so subsequently this launched my enthusiasm into both modelling and military aircraft.

By the time I became a teenager I was as an avid military aviation enthusiast (read - obsessive!): mainly the jet and modern era, and through the use of studying reference books, visiting air force bases and writing quizzes for my close friends - who also shared the same interest - my Warplane knowledge increased twentyfold. Building models became a very enjoyable hobby as it gave me a way of capturing the interest I had in the flesh, so to speak, rather than just through photos published in magazines and books. My areas of expertise were generally on specifications and hypothetical analysis of post war aircraft. I could recite aircraft lengths, speeds, roles, air force inventories and a whole lot more at a whim, sadly most of which I no longer retain. I remember buying the weekly Warplane magazine series published by Orbis and going through those "Scramble, Scramble, Scramble" quizzes in each issue. These required you to identify an aircraft from a tiny speck in the photo, sometimes identify the roundel of an air force, plus more. Needless to say I often achieved 100% such was my knowledge and interest at this period in my life.

I am now in my late Thirties, and have been involved in modelling for a long time. Several articles were written by me for a local modelling club in Adelaide, including kit reviews as well as tips, kit releases and all the info you need on expanding your modelling skills. Since the mid 1990's there has been a dramatic increase in my modelling enthusiasm as well as my skills, and my interest subsequently settled on modelling 1:72 aircraft. At around the same time I came across a number of fellow modelling enthusiasts who commented about the lack of available kit reviews to help them choose kits, so I decided to construct a web site to cater for the 1:72 & 1:48 scale modeller. Some of the early reviews on this site (other than my own) have been lifted from the local club's past newsletters and magazines (which technically I owned as the magazine was fully created by myself!), and which they have also kindly permitted me to reproduce on the web site.

There are now of course many other internet sites boasting kit reviews, many of which started or blossomed after SMAKR. I hold the view that this is fantastic for all modellers, even myself, to have so much information and resources at our fingertips. I therefore have no qualms about reviewers cross posting reviews on SMAKR and other sites - we all win in the end!

People often ask where I get my kits from and I'll be the first to admit I am the consumer first and foremost! If I see a kit I want, no matter what store it is in (hobby shop, large department store) I buy it! Although where possible I support my local Whyalla based small model store. I have been in the game long enough now to know that kits can often be hard to get (aside from the internet and ebay). I tend not to shop on ebay due to the overstated prices (there's a lot of second hand kits being offered for auction at equivalent or higher prices than new!!) and the lack of true bargain there.

Adelaide boasted only a small handful of reasonably sized model shops, all miles away from each other, so this also dictated why a lot of my purchases came from department stores and smaller toy shops like Toys R Us and Toyworld (they were much easier to access). Amazingly Whyalla has it's own model shop and whilst the kit selection is very small (a handful of Airfix, Academy and Italeri aircraft kits), it gives me great satisfaction of having a local guy to buy my favourite product from - they must also be the only dedicated hobby shop outside of Adelaide in South Australia! It's been a while since I bought anything online, my situation in Whyalla is that there is a lack of space at the moment to really get stuck into the hobby again which is why you will find so few of my reviews being posted.

Unfortunately the move to Whyalla meant also moving to an older house which just does not have the rooms available to partake in this hobby like I used to. I am relegated to building the kits in enthusiastic spurts from time to time on the dining room table which is only acceptable for short periods. One day I dream of an extra room to build and display my kits. Nearly all of my unbuilt kits are still boxed up in the shed ready for that move into a richer domain! In fact all my reference material is also still boxed up in my parents shed in Adelaide, waiting for the day I have the room again to be fully involved once again into this hobby.

In closing, I hope that this site fulfils the purpose of being an honest, informative, unbiased and useful resource for anyone looking for kit reviews and you get both education and enjoyment from its existence. Please remember to visit the Information Requests page before sending off an email query to me - running this site takes up almost every bit of my spare time and now that I live in Whyalla with so much of the country to explore and my family still in Adelaide (or coming up to visit) I can't respond to all the emails I receive. Remember, I am always looking for review contributions, without them, this site would not be (or continue to be) the excellent resource it is!

Best wishes to you all!
Mark B

SMAKR Webmaster

Contact information:
send to: SMAKR (Scale Model Aircraft Kit Reviews)
email: smakr1@optusnet.com.au

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