Last month we announced the upcoming release of the 1/72 German Haunebu flying saucer. A couple of weeks later we’ve got from Hand & Head an early production sample which to my eye looks like everybody else will get. This kit is not yet available and most hobby outlets in the Pacific hub are taking pre-orders with a tentative release date on December 2014 to early 2015. Luckily the folks over at H & H were kind enough to send us a George Adamski Flying saucer kit. Both kits submitted are first editions and do come in a high-quality box cover depicting the German Haunebu and the Adamski type saucer.
As a first edition bonus you will get a fictional badge sticker (see picture below). With the Adamski type, you will receive a very nice and high quality poster depicting the same box art illustrated by Kow Yokoyama.
To be honest and a very personal opinion. I would have preferred the badge sticker or some other goodie with the Adamski type saucer, and the poster with the German Haunebu. For the moment I’m taking good care of the Haunebu box because the artwork is too nice and I want to frame it.
As for the kits, here we go:
Both the Haunebu and the Adamski type model kits share for the most part the same moldings with the exceptions of a few sprues which can be seen on a separate batch of pictures below. There was one thing that caught my eye immediately. If both kits share the same mold, why are they labeled as 1/72 scale Haunebu and 1/48th scale for the Adamski? To make a long story short, after asking the folks at H & H, they did their homework on the Adamski accounts and in his book (‘Flying saucers have landed’. Published 1952), Adamski said that the size was 10 meters. With some homework and considering that there are different and sizes of the Haunebu, some accounts mention that they were 20 meters wide thus making it a 1/72 scale model.
I confess that I’m an avid follower with a very healthy dose of skepticism of the UFO phenomena and this difference in scale does not bother me in the least. I just wanted a good representation of the crafts and I believe that Hand and Head is giving us UFO followers and model kit builders the best of both worlds. On the one hand, German craft fans and model builders will have the opportunity to build a model of this mysterious and controversial flying craft. One the other hand UFO phenomena followers will get the chance of building a UFO model of the famous George Adamski UFO accounts. A win-win deal for us if you ask me.
Both kits share the same interior with control panels. No one has seen these craft much less the interior. But it is there and the panels can be removed to display it. You can also add LED’s inside. I’ve seen the Adamski Flying saucer from Atlantis models. With a very similar price tag on both and getting no interior on the Atlantis offering, you will definitely want the Hand and Head kit. The Hand and Head Haunebu is pretty much a new tooling while the other brand is a reissue of the Marmit kit issued in Japan over a decade ago.
Adamski type flying saucer kit sprues.
These pictures below are the extra sprues included with the Adamski type saucer model kit. The rest is the same shown on the image batch above. Note that the clear parts will play the role of portholes unlike the gun ports on the Haunebu above. As described by George Adamski in his accounts, the flying saucer had 3 round protrusions that seemingly changed shapes as it hovered at low altitude. You can see these depicted on the clear parts sprue as ‘domes’ while on the Haunebu kit they are gun turrets. This is pretty much the difference between both kits.
While the Adamski type saucer has been available since April, 2014, as I mentioned earlir, the Haunebu is just available from pre-order. There is no distributor for these kits at the moment in the USA. I recommend a Google search as: haunebu model kit pre order and vendors from the other side of the pond will show up. Monsters in Motion is taking pre orders -at the time of this entry.-
My sincere thanks to Sungyun Park president of Hand and Head products for his kind letter and providing us with these two samples.
If you’d like to know a bit more about the German Foo Fighters during World War 2, I highly recommend this video below.
What is the diameter of the Hand & Head Haunebu II? Where are Hand & Head models produced? What are their prices? Have you checked out “Operation Highjump” and Adm. Richard Byrd’s diary? If you did, did you notice the omitted ships in the US Navy Fleet? Why was an Operation which was supposed to last 6 to 8 months suddenly terminated after only 2 months? Why did Rear Admiral Forrester (a member of MJ 12) commit suicide? Who “helped” him to do it?
Hello Gunter!
Thanks so much for writing. If you give me a couple of days, I’ll fire up the studio lights and get the Haunebu out of storage for those pictures. Glad you commented on this. I love the subject and I see you’re very well versed in it as well. I don’t care if people tell me to wear my ‘tin foil hat’. The truth is that there is something to this phenomena.
As per where you can find one. When I originally received the samples. I believe someone else was already printing the same model under another label. Hand & Head are from Korea. The last company that was using the Hand & Head molds was Revell of Germany and this brought a controversy, so check this link in case you’re out of the loop in the case:
https://modelkitsreview.com/revell-of-germany-to-remove-the-german-haunebu-ii-ufo-plastic-model-kit/
I always knew the scale wasn’t right. I used the occupant’s seats as a reference to give the model a scale. Both versions are pretty much the same. Except for some of the parts to make the ”Adamski” version. If it doesn’t need to be the Adamski version and you can settle for any other Haunebu models like Revell of Germany’s version which is the same kit as the above, Pegasus Models also have a Haunebu kit. Squadron already has the 3rd iteration of their original Haunebu II. That one I own it and is a beauty.
I never got to build the Adamski version from Hand & Head and I kept it rather as a collectible. If you don’t mind, I would like to make a blog entry of your comment below. It is very informative and I wouldn’t like to get lost in the comments.
Let me know at your convenience, I will give you your due credit.
I haven’t been able to find any Hand & Head models anywhere so far. So I ended up getting the Atlantis George Adamski Flying Saucer. I chose it because its shape and layout were the closest I could find anywhere to the Haunebu II and the photos in Adamski’s book Inside the Spaceships. There is only one problem – it is described as a 1:60 scale, but is in fact closer to 1:160. As anybody who studied the subject knows each of the 7 built Haunebu II were slightly different and their diameters ranged from 23.6 to 31m. This would make even 1:72 scale models 39 to 43cm in diameter. The Atlantis model has only a diameter of 16cm. Most other models are about 20cm, so there is not one in a 1:72 scale. Others have either 4 turrets below instead of the 3 they should have and no diameters are given. It is sad to see that people go through all that work and still get it wrong. BTW: Cannons in the turrets are retractable. so they don’t have to show -as is the case with Adamski. That they didn’t come from Venus should be clear, when one considers the surface temperature of Venus: 400°C and poisonous to humans. Even US Admiral Richard E. Byrd, who led the “Operation Highjump” to the Antarctic in 1946/47 claimed in his diary that the “Aliens” spoke with a German accent. Weird, isn’t it?