RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

I know that this doesn't sound like a good question coming from me as I'm supposed to keep people from stirring up trouble here on RCU. But that's not my goal with this question at all. I was looking at the Build Article for the SR Batteries on Airfield Models Website and in that article he mentions that Aces of Iron had a pilot figure specifically for the SR Batteries 1/4 Scale Eindecker E1. Looking over Aces Of Iron Website I didn't see the pilot figure so I sent an email to the address listed ( [email protected] ) on the website asking if there was any possibility of maybe a scratch and dent or any chance in the future of getting the pilot figure. I really like the looks of the figure that Paul used in his build on Airfield Models and was really hoping that I could come up with one as the those currently available didn't trip my fancy quite as well. Unfortunately there has been no answer to my email and it has now been close to 3 weeks now. There is no phone number listed on the website that I could find that I could call.

So my question to the group here is this, has anybody else done recent business with Aces of Iron?? If I can't get the figure that I want there is another pilot that I would get instead and would still look good in the Eindecker, but since my email went unanswered I kind want to make sure that orders are at least being filled. So that's why I'm asking here. If anybody has had a recent order I would be grateful if you'd let me know so that I would feel more comfortable in making an order from him. Or, if anybody else is in the same boat as I am in I would also like to hear that as that is one thing that RCU is here for, in getting the word out to others in the hobby about problems such as this.

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

Ken

foodstick

They sure quit releasing pilots it seems like to me....which is a shame because they make the best WW1 stuff thats got a bit of character without being silly. A friend of mine finished a 1/4 camel earlier this year and sent them a letter asking for an out of production pilot he liked.. He told them he hated to see it fly without the right guy in the cockpit.... They said it was out of production..and then sent him one free. My buddy sent them a check because he didn't want to seem like he was free loading a company he likes. I don't think they ever cashed his check.

I believe someone has ripped off their smaller designs as there are copies of some of their pilots on HK .... That couldn't have helped business.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Lyle Vasser of Best Pilots by far puts out the best scale pilots out there, bar none. But since the SR Batteries Eindecker is a standoff scale plane I just can't bring myself to spend the $95 for the unpainted figure. Especially since I'm going to cut off a majority of the figure anyway since there isn't a full cockpit in this bird. That's why I wanted to go with the Aces of Iron pilot. It looked good and was a reasonable price at about $30. But like I said, he wasn't answering my email and it made me nervous to make an order if I can't get an answer to an email. If there was at least a phone number I could call to talk to a live person I could talk to and get a warm fuzzy or not about ordering. That's why I'm here in this thread to see what experiences others are having with dealing with them.

Ken

cmgtech1

I recently ordered a WWII 1/7th scale WWII German pilot figure. They accepted payment and about 3 days later I received notice that USPS has generated a shipping label for the delivery. I expect to receive the pilot figure Friday or Monday.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Well, let me answer my own question. I had asked this same question to the guys at my flying field about buying from Aces of Iron and one of them said he had ordered earlier this year from them and didn't have any issues. So I took that and the fact that I could make a payment through PayPal as a little protection and went ahead and placed my order for their 1/4 Scale Generic Scale WW1 Aviator Stlye #1. The figure was unpainted and cost $29.95 and with standard USPS shipping my total cost out the door was $34.45 which wasn't too much heartburn in case I wound up eating it. Like I said, I was still really nervous as I had not received any answers to my emails I was really skittish about placing an order, so this was a test to see what happened for one to see I fi I could get my figure and for two to answer back to the RCU public about an RC Company taking care (or not) of their clients.



I placed my order on August 24 and I received notification on the 25th that it had shipped using the US Postal Service Standard Ground Shipping. I came to work yesterday and I had new pilot sitting there having been delivered nice and neat by the Postman that morning. So in less than a week I did get my pilot shipped out from Aces of Iron. The shipping time was superb and I have nothing but the highest marks for them. Of course the figure is unpainted, but the quality and details of the unfinished figure are outstanding. As I said above, I wish I could have got my hands on the figure made for the SR Batteries Eindecker, but this pilot is going to make a nice substitute in the cockpit I'm sure. He's going to look really nice once he's painted up and ready to take the stick of the Eindecker.

I do want to add a quick note about something I said early about where I ship my parts too, my office. Luckily I am self-employed and can have all my orders shipped to my office. But even if I wasn't I would work out something with my employer and have shipments going to where I work. Too many things come up missing when they get shipped to a house and sit on a porch or in a mailbox all day long. In fact, our UPS guy was telling me that now instead of people driving down the street looking for things left on the front porch of a house, they will actually just follow the UPS or Fed Ex truck around and wait until they leave something on a front porch. Because of this I just have everything shipped straight to my office instead of to my house.

A second note. Earlier it was mentioned that Hobby King was one of the reasons why Aces Of Iron was hurting in their business and why they may not be shipping. We all know that HK and other Asian companies have no shame when it comes to coping designs and making them their own. So after reading above about the copying going on I went over the HK's website looking for pilot figures and sure enough, there were knock off figures there. It was fairly easy to see that they had copied the figures from Aces of Iron to start with, but that's where the similarities end. The copies had almost clown-like paint jobs at least what I could see in the pictures the molding looked like a joke. For example: First image is Aces of Iron figure, and the second image is the Hobby King Knockoff.




The Aces of Iron figure is $29.95 and the Hobby King figure runs $12.76. Personally $17.19 isn't worth the difference in the appearance of the two figures. Especially on a World War One plane where the pilot figures are usually very visible and easy to see.

Ok, I'll get down off my soap box now. Just wanted to say my 2 cents worth there!!!!! I've just seen too many good companies that have been knocked down and out because of knock-offs and it just drives me crazy. When I company like Aces Of Iron is out there putting out good quality product I think that we should do what we can to help and protect them.

Ken

foodstick

Aces of Iron is truly one of my favorite WW1 product suppliers. The way they have the history and some fun biographical facts about the pilots cheers me up when I read them ! A couple of my friends at the field and I have even caught ourselves laughing about the angle they use on the website. I wish they could introduce new pilots more often.. but everyone in my club seems to put them in 1/4 scale Balsa USA planes almost exclusively.

I for one am glad they are around.

Eddie P

My Feedback: (4)

I also like Aces of Iron, they are great. Every WWII plane I have built in the last couple years that has a fixed painted pilot has one. Painting them can be a hassle for some but I sort of like the experience of painting them. When I am looking for a finished, cloth uniformed pilot for the larger scale planes I like Warbirdpilots.com and they also make them with moving heads (servo operated) for those who want that little something extra.

jwrich

My Feedback: (17)

I have Aces of Iron in all my 1/4 scale BUSA WW I aircraft (3) and three on the shelf for my next project. They are beautifully done, quality matters.

Fair Winds & Happy Flyin'
Rich

Steve Collins

My Feedback: (8)

I just got one delivered earlier this month but I am concerned because their website has been down for a couple of weeks. These pilots are simply too good to disappear!

rcmigpilot

My Feedback: (26)

Anybody have any info on these guys? Really want one of their pilot but their web site is down and I have no way to contact them.

kakem

Mike Johnson here of Aces of Iron. Sorry for the site issues, our host server crashed in mid October and it took about three weeks to get an alternate installed. The website is now back up and we are still in business. Interesting topic, we are still doing good business although as mentioned above, our sales are off about 20% since Hobby Kings started selling it's knock-offs. What is worse, it that some people actually confuse the Hobby King product for ours and write to complain to us about the the quality or request a refund. Easy to see the confusion (from a distance) Hobby King not only poorly sculpted the knock-offs, they also copy our (copywrited) descriptions of our products. I cringe every time on of our figures gets shipped to Hong Kong as it likely goes right to the ministry of government sponsored piracy. Aside from that, business is steady. We have a small but dedicated following. Like most RC suppliers (Lyle included), we are a craft business. Most of us know each other (I have several of Lyle's figures and love his work too). Aces has never advertised and exists purely by word of mouth. We are not really in the business for business sake, we are hobbyists who fly and who love to build and spend a day or two a week working the details to make a little money to keep funding the builds.

Hope this helps,
Mike Johnson
Aces of Iron Productions Inc.

kakem

Oops, sorry Ken, forgot to address the e-mail concern. We have placed our e-mail address ([email protected]) on every page of the website since 2003 when we launched. This was fine back in 2003, but everyone knows what happens now when web crawlers mine sites for information. every morning, I wake up to 900 e-mails (mostly Viagra adds) through which I have to sort to look for legitimate requests. The frequency of true information request is about 2 per week. That means 2 in 6,300 (900/day x 7 days) chance every week of finding and responding to the request. Seems like a needle in the haystack, but I think we actually find and respond to about 90%. Unfortunately, some of the true requests get missed. We still look, sort, scan very day. We really appreciate our customer base and do everything we can to keep em happy.

Hope this helps,
Mike Johnson
Aces of Iron Productions Inc.

jwrich

My Feedback: (17)

Thanks for the heads up, I was worried that the Hobby King folks had run off another great product. I have 6 of your WW I pilots in my planes. They are great. Maybe the forums can get the word out for you.

Thanks
Rich

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Mike,
I do IT for a living, so I know the hassles of having to deal with a downed server. So it's glad to see you back up and running. While I haven't started painting my figure yet for my Eindecker, I can say that am absolutely pleased that I purchased it. The details on it are stunning, and it's easy to tell that they are made by a craftsman. Just looking at the compared "rip-off" from overseas I can tell you that there is no comparison between your's and those rip-offs in quality. The sad thing is some people just want to spend as little money as possible and will settle for cheap crap instead of paying for good looking figures!!!!

I'm glad you are back up and running.

Ken

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Mike,
Hmmm, something odd still going on. After I read your posts here and answered you in post above I tried to go to your website. I'm still unable to open it up and view the site. I've tried to access from several different computers on several different networks, so I know it's not my computer with the problem. Something is still broken somewhere in the works.

Ken

TLH101

My Feedback: (90)

Seems to be working fine for me. I think maybe you just broke the internet.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Working for me now too. But when I read his post it wasn't working. Trust me. I did check from multiple computers before I did post back here that it wasn't working!!!!

Glad to see that it's back up now.

Ken

kakem

Yea, may not be quite out of the woods yet. The host said they may have to install new server. But good news is that I learned my lesson and saved all my data so I can switch to new host if they can't recover. I am pretty happy with the company though, been with them since 2003 and this down server has only happened twice. If we are only down for a week, that is bearable, I suggest ordering fast for all your near-term projects and rest assured we will be back up as soon as possible if it goes down again.

Wagon1

Hi Mike! Thanks for the heads up. I have your British pilot in my 1/6 BUSA Tommy. Your stuff is really great. Any chance of bringing back "John"? Those of use building a Top Flite 1/6 Corsair have no good pilot options ��

TLH101

My Feedback: (90)

I second the need for a good 1/6 scale WWII pilot. All those Top Flite 85" p-47s are 5.8 :1 scale, and we need pilots. Lots of kits out there, and T/F has 2 different P-47 ARFs as well.

kakem

John was our second design, we pulled him because the neck was too thin (head to neck ratio was bad) and he couldn't take the flight loads. Many people reported spontaneous decapitation. This is the reason many of the following designs incorporated scarves or gear in position to help take the loads. We also avoided the 1/6 scale in general because of the GI Joe dolls were making a come-back and we felt the market was flooded. Now that that market has saturated, most of the cheap manufacturers have left the market and I agree there is a gap there. We do have the P-51 master in 1/6 scale just because of our scaling process, so offering him is an easy thing to do. Look for a release of that scale within the next few weeks. This will help the P-51 and P-47 guys, but I don't really have a good design ready for the naval aviators. Sorry for the lull in designs, I took the last few years to knock out a masters degree for my day job, but now I do plan to get back in to the swing of things here, so stay tuned.

Warwix

My Feedback: (1)

Mike, I hope this finds its way to you. I purchased one of your 33% civilian pilots via pay pal on your website on 1/11/16 but I haven't heard back from anyone about the transaction. I've reached out on email, phone and multiple forums. I'd really like to know if I should be expecting a product or if this is a dead end. Any info would be great before I decide to get paypal to return my money.

Steve Collins

My Feedback: (8)

Patience. You will get your order. They have never responded to any of my orders with anything other than delivery of the pilot bust.

Warwix

My Feedback: (1)

I'm doing my best to be patient, but it's not one of my strong points haha. I'll sit back a few more days, but in my mind I'm just doing my do diligence to make sure things are on the up and up. I also only have 30 days to request a refund from paypal if something has changed on their end. I've read posts on multiple forums so I understand this is their status quo but I expected some type of contact by now, even if it is just notice of accepted payment or shipping. Hopefully I will report back very soon with a pilot figure in my hands because this bust will be the needed detail to finish off my 35% IMAC plane that is currently on my workbench.

foodstick

I have always wondered why they retire some pilots? Did the sales just drop off on that figure..... or were the molds beyond repair?