First at all
I have to say a big thank you to Dan Linton for handling this survey issue
from the beginning. I highly appreciate his effort in helping developing
this site! Dan, thank you so much for your time! Also an other big thank you
goes for the members who spent few minutes and contacted Dan with the
details, and participated in improving the site with it!
This survey's
purpose was to find out more on the carrier model building habits, to
determine the interests to provide information to improve the site's
content. Please understand, that this survey was for carrier modeling only
this time!
Zoltan "neu"
Pocza - Editor, ACB
Not being
professional sociologists, neither 'neu' nor I have had much experience in
creating survey questions that would yield accurate information. What
follows then, is an amateur effort that hopefully can be built upon in
future years.
First, I
would like to thank those members who did e-mail me: next year a
questionnaire will be created and information put directly on the website.
Second, let me share some frustration -- for those members who made no
response, I checked through our membership lists, through submissions to the
website and our forums; and through submissions and membership lists on
other websites. Despite the hours spent doing this, for 44 members no
specific information could be found. There are 21 members who have not
provided their country; almost as many have a pen-name or acronym and no
other information; and more than a few members list their interests as
'ships' or 'aircraft'. Oh well.
This survey,
inexact as it is, illuminates three large groups within
the membership.
|
Group |
Description |
|
Group
1:
44 members
|
This is the
group mentioned above. Many of these members are also members of other
websites but even their no specific information can be found. If
anything can be said about this group, it is that these members appear
to have an interest in aircraft and ships, their development and
history, without necessarily having an interest in modeling. For the ACB
website to have a greater value for these members, more articles on
ships' histories, design philosophies, and operations will have to be
developed. Something along the lines of the 'Task Force' offerings found
on the old 'navis'(landandsea) website. This will take time -- this
website is only 5 months old and 'neu' can't do it all. What can be done
for this group is to make the General Forum more lively -- very few
threads go beyond one page. Perhaps a "Did you know?" or "Do you know?"
forum might be created with questions or propositions that will generate
controversy and interest (for example: "In the 2004 election the
Conservative Party of Canada suggested that the Canadian military should
build two 'aircraft carriers' -- they meant small helo carriers -- is
this a good idea or is it rather dumb?" I imagine the six Canadian
members could get something started with such a question to the
amusement of others who could freely join in). |
Group 2:
45 members |
This group,
as best I could determine, is interested in actively modeling naval
aircraft with little or no interest in modeling ships. One can add three
other members to the total because their specific interest/project is a
diorama focused on an aircraft with part of a carrier provided within
the diorama. The group operates in four scales: 1:144 (2 members); 1:72
(10); 1:48 (21) and 1:32 (5) and two members have specific interests in
helicopters (1:35). The numbers above do not add up to 45 since several
members build in more than one scale and 13 members expressed an
interest in naval air (Fleet Air Arm; IJN; Soviet/Russian as well as
USN) without indicating any scale preference. |
Group 3:
52 members
|
This group
builds (or will build) aircraft carrier models. So far, American
carriers dominate with about half being WWII builds and the other half
being super-carriers. This dominance is overwhelming -- there are very
few British, Japanese, or other nations' carriers presently under
construction by the membership, although the Russian Kuznetzov with
three building/completed and two projected has some popularity. I have
broken the numbers down as best I could: several members of course have
many completed builds but I tried to count only the latest completions.
|
|
|
|
|
Scale |
Members |
|
1: 2400 |
2 members |
|
1: 1200 |
1 member |
|
1: 700/720 |
18 members and 3 future
projects |
|
1: 600 |
0 members |
|
1: 500 |
0 members |
|
1: 400 |
1 member |
|
1: 350 |
27 members and 11 future
projects |
|
1: 300 |
0 members |
|
1: 192/200
|
0 members |
|
1: 144/150 |
3 members and 2 future
projects |
|
1: 96/100 |
1 member and 1 future
project |
|
1: 72 |
3 members (2 dioramas) |
|
1: 48 |
2 members (1 diorama) |
|
1:24 |
1 member |
I tried to count
only 1 build per modeler but that was not always possible, so the numbers
add up to more than 52, and I did not accurately note if a build was a 'box
scale' (e.g. Revell's old 1:542 Forrestal) or not.
For the future survey (March-April 2006) we will attempt to count those
carriers and aircraft actually completed by the end of ACB's first year;
those currently under construction (as of March 31, 2006); and those to be
undertaken next.
If you have any comments or suggestions to improve this survey, please don't
hesitate to contact 'neu' or myself,
Dan Linton
Click here to discuss about this survey in the forum!
