Halcyon66

Excellent comments, the loss of wage growth over the last 5 years and the growth of online purchasing both domestically and internationally leave little upside to smaller operators. Additionally Govt’s globally are running out of taxable income from more globalisation and will only start to cut back on social and other programs sooner rather than later. When you have declining industries and more demand for unemployment there will be a point whereas the system doesn’t work anymore.

Even though Govt’s all say they can stop and make changes it is no longer in their control.

Regards,

.

luv2flyrc

My Feedback: (6)

and I thought everything down there was GREAT AGAIN!

ZB

The manufacturing or western declined is overuses expression, look at the EU. Germany, Swiss, Czech, Slovak record low unemployment, all manufacturing is booming. Here in Florida the space/aeronautical industries are booming, only Space X what 20 rocket launches this year.

You cannot mistaken bad management with bad decision making and lack of development as western decline. I was always wondering how Hobbico or any large company can stay in business, they fix cost must be astronomical, they respond time very very slow.

wojtek

My Feedback: (73)

It is a combination of things .. bad business strategy and bad product pricing. $ 2K-$3k radio was a reasonable cost back 10 years ago for a good system. With the advancements in tech and manufacturing, it is not acceptable that prices stay that high. Pricing did no keep up with tech, and it killed off the potential customer base, which further prevented lower pricing . consumer does not get what they pay for these days... all the hobby distributors hung themselves pretty high.

tp777fo

My Feedback: (28)

Another brutal fact is that our hobby is slowly dying. Look at the guys at the field. Most are old and gray like me...very few kids to grow it. Price is also an issue. A nice sport scale warbird will run $1500 to get ready..a jet even more. Dont knock the foamies as they be our salvation as they are affordable to young guys who try the hobby. The last thing is most everyone has the number one issue is price point..I want it cheap, dont want to pay American manufactured price so guess what...they are all going going gone. Lots of guys make it their personal war on BVM because of the price. Well you get what you pay for. I have never had to re-engineer anything Bob sold..cant say that about the Chinese ARFs. Even Skymaster requires lots of work to make them fly reliably and you pay about the same price. I personally think they are painted turds. I still like to build but how many real jet kits are out there. Avonds is about it. (wonderful experience to build one of his kits). Oh well I said it. Headed the kitchen to pop some popcorn.

SECRET AGENT

My Feedback: (18)

Your absolutely right Tom, heck I'm the youngest guy in my club and I'm almost 50!

wojtek

My Feedback: (73)

..... and the old guys left make it all but impossible for the younger generation to get into the hobby. "Usually" not the friendliest bunch to be around ... I am 40 and will still avoid clubs, meetings and related functions all I can .. just don't need to deal with it . My son was getting into RC, until he saw how some people are, and wanted nothing to do with it ... no biggie, as he is now 16 and we are into cars and off-roading together, having lots more fun, with less irritation. Its amazing what RC Jet hobby time & money will get you spent elsewhere ! lol This is a common thread with many who have left the hobby.

I still fly, and have ton of planes / helis that need finished, but just not into it like I used to be :\ . When I do fly, its by myself with only a select few close friends.

SECRET AGENT

My Feedback: (18)

Well, living in New Jersey may have something to do with the unfriendly thing, HA! Come on down south for some good ol southern hospitality!

Halcyon66

There are actually very few "Booming Economies" simply because when you look at 7+ years of zero interest rates what you have are more along the line of completely false economies. Rates have started to go up in the US, EU and Asia will not be far behind, a couple of hunderd basis points will make a huge difference.

It will all be very different if people have to actually pay for money rather than getting it for free. No one ever wants to think things are going to go bad, hope is eternal but doesn't pay the bills.

Regards,

tp777fo

My Feedback: (28)

I don't disagree at all with your comments. Throw a jet into the equation and lot of the old farts go ballistic...never understood why. Im' lucky. My club has a bunch of kids with foamlies. Our members support them, help them and make it fun for them. Moms' drop them off at the field and we take care of them. Our club just asked the jet guys to host a jet rally as they were not successful with the ways of the past and we eagerly accepted the challenge. Our jet guys are the movers and shakers. We have made several improvements to the field that benefit all members....we have finally lost the bad guy overtone with our members.

wojtek

My Feedback: (73)

duplicate

wojtek

My Feedback: (73)

you are right, sometimes it can .. NY is even worse ! lol
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tp777fo ,
sounds like you guys have a good hting going ! keep it up !
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Halcyon66
"There are actually very few "Booming Economies"
really ? its booming globally like it has not in a long time ... biggest worry people have is that it will actually crash. Not just vaporware companies .. real manufacturing like Boeing and Caterpilar, etc ... Tech sector ? doubling and trippling values over the last 2x year . THere is A LOT of toy money going around. Ever look at the exotic and classic car market ? they can't make enough of these things ... its just the people spending $ are not doing it on RC.. goes to say something about the appeal of the hobby and the new instant gratification generation that has no attention span :\

SECRET AGENT

My Feedback: (18)

Wojtek, I think you hit the nail on the head with this new generation's attention span. My son included. If they can't have instant gratification they don't bother with it. Onviously that's not universally true but generally speaking yes. I also think thats why foamies are so attractive to them. At our club we just can't seem to interest the kids, even when we throw all sorts of free gear at them to get them interrested. Sad really.

Halcyon66

So you ever think why there is so much money floating around? When you have zero cost of funds everything is great when you have to pay 2% all of a sudden things go messy fast. When companies have zero cost funding why do you think the stock market would not go up as they can borrow for almost nothing and therefore have another 3% on their bottom line for nothing. if you look at a vast percentage of stock trades they are from companies buying their own stock back, whcih only pushes the price up? The private equity guys have been hammered on subprime car loans, do you remember what happened last time with the subprime market when it was housing. Private-equity firms hedge funds hurt by subprime auto loans - Business Insider.

Regards,

tp777fo

My Feedback: (28)

Halcyco 66...just zip up the pollitical ****. This is a model airplane site. I noticed you dont live here so you dont know whats really going on. unzip your pants and flop it out...I'll take the size of my economy over Australia any day. Dont believe the crap you hear on TV about the US.

wojtek

My Feedback: (73)

Companies pumping their own stock values on an overall scale is a myth. Economy being good does not mean everyone is doing well.. it is an overall generalization. I personally fared better under a slower moving economy over the fast paced market this year. The hedge fund and equity guys getting hammered is because excessive greed and wanting faster bigger profits, taking greater risks. Consumers do the same by buying what they cant afford, or can barely afford payments on. I do think this whole cheap credit thing is a big problem in itself though, and consumer and lender equally to blame. I have learned to only buy if i can buy with cash and that means what i can afford with cash. Of course that does not contribute to speeding the economy up.

SO back to these hobby distributors. They got greedy trying to keep high margins, limiting their re-sellers, etc ... If Hobbico and Horizon were so good in penetrating the "rc" market, a lot of the prospering drone manufacturers would be relying on them for distribution ... but why would they when they can go to Best Buy and other big name stores directly. Most of the mainstream hobby grade RC gear is seriously overpriced and inflated compared to the development and manufacturing costs ... it is a downward spiral unfortunately .. AMA is a pathetic joke lately grasping at straws and kissing up to a market that does not care about them also. I don't see an RC hobby renaissance any time soon unfortunately. Kids AND ADULTS these days cant even glue two pieces of wood together for the life of them.

So my son was turned off from RC by the "social" challenges of the hobby, lol .. He was never mechanically inclined however before, and had me a little concerned he was too "digitally" inclined. Well, he dunked his dirt-bike in some mud and needed to fix it . He went from knowing nothing to rebuilding his whole top end, rebuilding a carb, redoing the valves, upgrading some suspension parts, etc , etc .. It was enough that I trusted him to do a whole exhaust job with me on one of my cars, and we had a great time doing it ... oh yea, all the parts for his bike were less than 1/2 of what servos for one of my jets cost .. less than a decent foamy. So tell me what hobby is he going to continue with ? Sadly, my direction had been similar .. and I say sadly, because I do miss flying as mush as I used to ( and I miss the friends unexpectedly lost over the years also )

Halcyon66

Completely agree with your comments wojtek, if you cannot afford don't borrow.

tp777fo I don't live in Australia, currently in Palma.

Regards,

luv2flyrc

My Feedback: (6)

I agree that the hobby suppliers have priced themselves out of the market. I mean, look at the cost of the toys we play with.... model airplanes that cost more than motorcycles or some cars. $3000 TX's, think about what you can buy in high end electronics, TV's, audio equip for $3k! Servo's that cost $200 for mickey mouse little $10 motors. It really is ridiculous, is it any wonder they are not doing well?

ravill

My Feedback: (11)

LOL @ just buy everything with cash.

Many of us are lucky that we can buy a $20k+ jet and it not hurt too much, but the VAST majority of people have to borrow to live.

And some of us have to borrow a couple of million for our 3 bed 2 bath houses.

The last car I paid cash for was when I was in college.

I max out my credit card EVERY month.

We we all live with different levels of credit comfort.

Regarding RC, there are plug n play jets now. It’s the new ARF.

Ugh.....

Dave Wilshere

The price thing you are so wrong. The hobby has never been cheaper. It’s a numbers game, the high street stuff is many millions of customers, model aeroplanes is tiny tiny. The reason these companies are in trouble is selling with a small margin, go start a model company and see what things really cost to make for the numbers sold. It’s where HH went wrong here and had to close. Discount to dealers, dealers use discount to undercut the opposition and no one makes enough money to survive.
The hobby is going to be a Ferrari owners club hobby and prices will have to reflect the tiny numbers doing it.
Consumer numbers have grown, so household goods came down in price, more sold. Increase in population has not increased hobby sales as there is too much fun stuff to spend money on and our hobby is not like it was in the 80-90’s where it was one of the coolest things to do with engineering and flight involved. Pnp killed the hobby, there is no pride in turning up at the field with a new model you crafted, so people get board quickly and move on. Quads took all the skill from rotary flight, easy to fly and assembly to fly smoothly. No challenge = boredom.

Hobby dies with our generation....

Halcyon66

completely correct, all RC stuff is cheaper now than it ever has been. turbines stay in the same price range and yet their thrust figures continaully go up, full composite are the norm at the same price levels of the old kits. tx with more functions than a flight deck are available for almost nothing if you want a no name. 20?? axis gyros make flying easy with zero learning curve.

3mtr jet arrive on a friday via online purchase and are at the club sunday.

stuff costs hardly nothing yet when if fails the s**t hits the fan on the forums, makes it very hard to be on the sell side.

Regards,

HarryC

My Feedback: (1)

I agree with Dave Wilshere. I started in this hobby in the 1970s when a basic 4 channel radio cost the equivalent of what a top end computer set costs now. Yet the hobby was thriving and most towns had a model shop. Nobody was whining that it was too expensive.

lavi rider

My Feedback: (6)

From one who’s also part of this business in all possible scales I have to agree with David . This hobby has always been expensive to manufacture compared to amount of items being produced and in the end quality is a critical factor ... funny is how fast the customer seem to forget how cheap he paid for a certain item the moment it fails..yes prices went down over the years and yes items manufactured in the Far East are even less expensive due to labor cost and poor quality control .
Labor cost is no longer low in the Far East anymore and even they understood that quality control is a beneficiary factor for them. This all raises prices .
David wrote the hobby will turn into a “Ferrari owners club” he is right . In a way it always was... true the hobby is more accessible to people in some aspects but the high end products are still out of reach to some people as many other things out there are ... it is a fact of life and not much can be done about it unless some generous billionaire will reach deep into his pocket and start producing it all , offering it to the public at under cost prices ...I’m not sure it will shrink the prices much
as the profit margin today is close to nothing making dessicion on keeping the business is an everyday struggle in our minds....

ravill

My Feedback: (11)

This and JR dying are the saddest things I've read in a while.

Halcyon66

I think that could be a little extreme, the hobby will always be around as there will always be people that love building and flying model aircraft. As the real aircraft become more exotic so will the models.
Unfortunately the odds are indeed stacked against the hobby in a lot of areas not just from the above points. The encroachment of housing near well-established flying fields are making waves, old local council empty blocks that were clubs for years and never had any interest to anyone are now worth $$ and the developers see the potential.
The total out of control quadcopter market has put a lot of pressure on the relevant authorities to try and tighten everything up and the back end will probably involve increasing insurance rates soon as well, and will probably put further puressure on fields and there locations. Threats from these stupid things are also making alot of issues and the authoities normally knee jerk laws regarding them quickly into action.
Same can be said for full scale airports whereas again the local authorities have sold off all the land around the runways so now you have houses 50 foot either side of the runways.
Yes the numbers will drop but I think there will still be the faithful, probably like most hobbies. If you look at build threads they are still going strong.

Regards,