For decades and many years, I had been greatly interested in the Coastal Steamers of Norway and their long history. I would read every book and article written about the coastal service and the ships, at least two or three times until I could remember all the smallest details and historical facts. But, with the arrival of the new generation of ships in early 90’s and again from late 90’s, the interest dropped dramatically. Then, social media became the new channel for like-minded, and strangely enough, the interest plummeted and eventually hit rock bottom.
After many years living in Thailand, the interest shifted to something more close to me: Thai Airways.
Years continued to fly by and even though aviation was always in the back of my head, it never escalated. Yes, I had been collecting a couple handfuls with aircraft models from Thai Airways in scale 1:400, but that was about it. I would be quite interested in discussing the airline with anybody willing to do so, but after moving back to Norway, there wasn’t many like-minded. Then, about 2-3 years ago, the fire inside of me was relit and the interest keep on peaking higher and higher. Now, the interest inside of me is burning as fierce as a forest fire out of control, and it’ continously being fueled by like-minded people in my innermost circles.
As I’m currently selling off my Hurtigruten-memorabilias to the highest bidders, I’m spending that money on building my own airline with a collection of Thai Airways aircraft models in 1/200-scale. I have been able to gather two handfuls already, and I’m only going for the one’s of the best quality - the INFLIGHT / JFOX brand.
I’m currently looking for the Thai Airways edition of the Caravelle, A330-300 (Royal Barge), A340-600, A380 (HS-TUA) and the soon to be released B777-300ER. Sometimes, I have to settle for other brands, but INFLIGHT / JFOX is clearly the superior quality when it comes to 1/200-scale models.
And - as if that is not enough, and even though I’m not currently collecting any other airline, there is one SAS - Scandinavian Airlines model I keep on drooling over - probably because it is really hard to find. The SAS-version of their Boeing 747-200 SE-DDL “Huge Viking”.
My primary suppliers are located in Hong Kong and in Bangkok (naturally), but hauling home more than one of these models each visit is not possible because of their size.
I would love to hear from other collectors, aircrafts or anything else.
In the beginning, I collected aircrafts in scale 1/400 but since then, I have moved on to INFLIGHT/JFOX models in scale 1/200.
