HappyRCFlyer
Strong User
It is important to support American based kit manufacturers. I can attest with my new start up that it's a giant amount of work to get merely established, much more then what people think. The time required is more extensive, from the development of the new design, fine tuning and cutting and packing it up, creating the build guide, it all adds up. Competing with China also forces the profit margins to be absolute minimum which rather is setting the rates for the industry all together.
There are things we as American kit manufactures have over the Chinese though, we do not have the language and culture barriers which is helpful on product design and placement for the people local to this country, we also far in absolute excess are able to support the lines to a far greater level of sophistication and finesse. We also do tend to put in more quality and we take pride in our lines.
I'm onto my third year, with the prior ones doing the necessary foundational work, part of was finding a quality balsa supplier which I am using Aloft exclusively for that. It's not a field you can just design up a kit or two and go to town with production. I had only dabbled on the sales end to test the market and now with enough new designs under my belt, focused on production and my sales are mainly through E-bay. My background on the business sector is in the coffee industry, web sites are espressooutfitters.com, and espresso-outfitters.com, and certainly it's helpful having over three decades of general business ownership experience, I still have to pay the same dues as any other new start up with the RC aircraft kit division, web site, happyrcflyer.com.
Those contemplating starting their own, there is a huge learning curve for the software and hardware requirements, if computers aren't your thing you are going to struggle far more then you think. Still, those skills are secondary to having a strong background as a builder, both scratch and kit building. I've seen too many who's only strength is on the design aspect and it ends up with a lot of issues and loose ends to their design work because they both do not have a building background, often they don't even build the prototype/first of the line with their designs which is a must do in my book to fine tune and work out any additional details.
What endears me to it, I am making friends along the way. It's rather built in moral support, I don't get that with the coffee industry, it's strictly business and only business on that realm, what ever friendships are formed are short lived. I enjoy the build part of this hobby most, still, building that prototype, there is both pressure to perform with exacting measure, you are also having to take a lot of time out for extra photo's and text instructions along the way, it's going to be just amusing when I get around to making a copy of the original plane, now that all of the details were laid out, overcame and fine tuned, just get to build and relax.
If you guys want to see greater selection, such as with Aloft's lines, mine or other American based operations, patronize them first before shopping around for Chinese models.
Sharing part of my fleet lined up with the new venture lines.
There are things we as American kit manufactures have over the Chinese though, we do not have the language and culture barriers which is helpful on product design and placement for the people local to this country, we also far in absolute excess are able to support the lines to a far greater level of sophistication and finesse. We also do tend to put in more quality and we take pride in our lines.
I'm onto my third year, with the prior ones doing the necessary foundational work, part of was finding a quality balsa supplier which I am using Aloft exclusively for that. It's not a field you can just design up a kit or two and go to town with production. I had only dabbled on the sales end to test the market and now with enough new designs under my belt, focused on production and my sales are mainly through E-bay. My background on the business sector is in the coffee industry, web sites are espressooutfitters.com, and espresso-outfitters.com, and certainly it's helpful having over three decades of general business ownership experience, I still have to pay the same dues as any other new start up with the RC aircraft kit division, web site, happyrcflyer.com.
Those contemplating starting their own, there is a huge learning curve for the software and hardware requirements, if computers aren't your thing you are going to struggle far more then you think. Still, those skills are secondary to having a strong background as a builder, both scratch and kit building. I've seen too many who's only strength is on the design aspect and it ends up with a lot of issues and loose ends to their design work because they both do not have a building background, often they don't even build the prototype/first of the line with their designs which is a must do in my book to fine tune and work out any additional details.
What endears me to it, I am making friends along the way. It's rather built in moral support, I don't get that with the coffee industry, it's strictly business and only business on that realm, what ever friendships are formed are short lived. I enjoy the build part of this hobby most, still, building that prototype, there is both pressure to perform with exacting measure, you are also having to take a lot of time out for extra photo's and text instructions along the way, it's going to be just amusing when I get around to making a copy of the original plane, now that all of the details were laid out, overcame and fine tuned, just get to build and relax.
If you guys want to see greater selection, such as with Aloft's lines, mine or other American based operations, patronize them first before shopping around for Chinese models.
Sharing part of my fleet lined up with the new venture lines.
