vallawyer

You have never flown:
An easytiger fw190
A Sisty 190
A meister scale 109
Or any of the planes you are talking about. So you are just talking smack. You know nothing about flying these planes at all.
When you say the designed does not know what he is doing, you do not know what you are talking about.
BECSUEYOUHAVENEVERDONEIT. You have not deisgned or produced ANYmodels, so you have no idea why the designers did what they did. You are all just talk.

vallawyer

I have to ask something...are you really a teenager living in his parent's basement? You seem like someone who bases his opinions based on what he reads on the internet, not about what he experiecs in the real world.

Evil_Merlin

My Feedback: (13)

Again, I ask, lemme know what flying those planes has to do with the scale fidelity of said aircraft.

You keep strawmanning.


Are the Easy Tiger Fw 190 and Bf 109 Scale? Is the current KMP Fw 190 D9 Scale? If so what are they scale to?

How does my lack of current builds make my knowledge of the Bf 109 and Fw 190 any less accurate?

Fixed for really bad English. Its late here.

vallawyer

This is your hobby, arguing on line.  Not modelling.  I understand you now.
But you have never actually built any scale models, and you never had any books published.
And you will never start any model company.
All you will ever do is bash others online.
I understand you now.

Evil_Merlin

My Feedback: (13)

And once again you avoid the questions...


Are the Easy Tiger Fw 190 and Bf 109 Scale? Is the current KMP Fw 190 D9 Scale? If so what are they scale to?

How does my lack of current builds make my knowledge of the Bf 109 and Fw 190 any less accurate?




As for only bashing... you apparently don't know how to use search too well either...

Magnum RC

I think I will step in here and thank Evil and Kahlog for making the KMP thread top billing on RCU, maybe all the advertising will offer them some sort of compensation.The KMP models do fly well. LOL

Whistling Death

For the benefit of Magnum RC.
About your post on products being bashed for a reason and then no one giving them a second chance.
As for LADO, there was nothing wrong with the product. In fact the LADO retracts were superb but the guy running the business wasn't good at it.
I am glad to see you pick up the ball and run with it because LADO was a product that worked. They are worth what you pay for them.

As for KMP I won't ever buy another one because I payed a lot of money for a plane that the quality, materials and workmanship didn't match up to the price.
It certainly had nothing to do with the scale or lack of it in any way shape or form. I just work too hard for my money to get bit on like that.

My club mates and I were talking were wondering how a company like Aeroworks is able to keep the quality up in a Chinese built ARF when others can't or won't?
Their planes are on the expensive side but they justify the cost by the quality workmanship and ease of build.

Magnum RC

Thank you for the compliment, I will continue to try to offer great service and conduct business in opposite of Doug Pientek. The French connection has also bent over backwards to retain the quality and improve upon it. I am not going to say anything about our products here cause the big bad moderator will just say I am advertising, but check out the website. As for your experience with KMP, there are widely varying experiences out there. Yes their models are made in China, but so are everyone elses this is true. But, when you anti up a design specification that includes composite construction, that is much more difficult to render than a wooden model with film covering. A good modeler can create any plane with wood where if attempted in fiberglass would fall flat on his face. This is the difference I see. It is more difficult to bring to market, a plane made of composite fiberglass and wood. The fellas that demand that quality and scale authenticity should be buying in the class of the SisT and Comp ARF and shut the heck upabout other peoples products.
I would dare anyone bash one of these.

One more note, I bet you if you had talked to Andrew Kondor about it, he would have made it right with you one way or the other. I think he has a desire to make his customers happy.

w0mbat

My Feedback: (1)

All you guys are beating a dead horse! There has never been a true scale ARF produced and there won't be one unless new inexpensive weightless materials are discovered or the laws of aerodynamics change!

ZERO-322

My Feedback: (2)

I don't think its a question of scale or not scale , but what everyone has to realize is when your spending 600 plus on an ARF your expectations on what your getting should justify the price tag If it doesn't then why spend it on a KMP ? why should I give my money to something that would require just as much work to get it right as opposed to spending a mere 200 dollars on the airframe money that could be spent elsewhere
Yes most of the feed back has been negative and sometimes poorly worded, but a true business man takes and uses this as a tool to improve, if you don't and have a faint heart then you don't belong in business
No company saw more basing and negative feedback then Lado did, hell check out there thread it made war and piece look like a Sunday article, and yet you had guys like Magnum RC that picked up the gauntlet and ran with it, everyone including me thought they were nuts or really really bored who loved abuse, Bottom line is they showed guts took all the negative publicity used it as a tool of what not to do and are now a success, I speak as a former current and future Lado owner I am a customer for life and won't even consider another retract option
What I am trying to say as stated above if these changes are implemented then Great ! I think everyone would be happy, previous wit experience with KMP within this very same thread I believe was with the T-28 where someone made a suggestion on the plane it too was in the trial stages and next thing you know the change was made demonstrating a willingness to listen to the customer I can only hope they follow suit as done before

Whistling Death

Skyshark does it right the first time and for a reasonable price, that is all a guy can ask for.

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

Zero great post , I will add my 2 cents . I use to only buy CMP and bash the planes to my version of scale , I dont care about the estrogen crowd that will argue endlessly on a defining what a scale arf is , who cares its an ARF , you want exact scale , build it . My opinion on KMP , was virtually just like yours (zero) I am not buying a $500 to $600 arf , if some very basic things are out of wack . My first and last experience was with the KMP corsair , radior scoops were assembled in the wings backwards lol , yep that was my $550 plane , and as far as "new and improved retracts " well haha , that was really funny .
So to me , from that point on in RC arfs , I dont assume or believe quality based on a "name brand" . Quality in relationship to price is subject to what the market offers in the segment you compete , and in RC the $500 to $600 range has evolved to a much higher level then some of the current players can achieve or measure up to .
If you look at the new Giant Scale P40 from Top Flight , I would have to say that the plane is a "signature series" of real quality , not assumed based on a name brand but earned in the shop and on the field with flight reports .

ZERO-322

My Feedback: (2)

Very well said my friend !

kahloq

Jealous? Upset that ppl like myself that KNOW what we are talking about get contacted by companies and offered things for FREE to test, offer our opinions for improvement, and ...I gave a complete honest review. I said what was wrong with it, bugs n all and what was RIGHT about it. That is why ppl like me, Evil if he has, and others get contacted. Because we KNOW what we are talking about.
How DARE you lump me into a thread regarding the Yak 3, when Ive never even visited that thread. Or even further, try to pass off that the only thing ive ever done on RCU is talk bad about every plane. Thats complete garbage and you know it. Most posts ive made in any other thread are about what ive done to a specific plane or "hey..this looks like a decent plane". So....sit n spin MR think you are right. All you want to do is try to prop up your argument using false data or even no data at all. Schilling a DR-1 over at rcgroups? Ive made no attempt to try and get ppl to buy the plane. Really...are you smoking something?
All we've talked about in this thread is the correctness or correct representation of a true plane. Thats all. Any of the Easytiger planes your so fond of are just amalgamations of various versions of the plane with many aspects not even being correct to the real plane. Whatever, if you like it thats your deal, but you have no right to tell others they should ACCEPT that as a scale plane.
In fact, its not a warbird at all. Your easytiger planes are only SPORT planes with similarities in general shape to a warbird.

The amount of posts you have made in the last 24 hours is really defining, because all you have done in every one of them is ATTACK ppl that don't care for the planes you've bought. Big whoop!

You lump me in with a "crowd of people", as you like to say, that go thread to thread bashing everything in site. And you specifically stated "EVERY thread" You are so full of crap its beyond pathetic. If ive done that.....PROVE IT!!!! You cant. End of story. I did even state in the Easytiger ME-109 thread that it had promise. That with some work, it could be made to look half decent. Guess you cant see beyond your own face. Get a life poser, cuz thats ALL you are!

LDM and others are exactly right. Spend $500-600 or more on a plane that looks wrong in many ways? No thanks. Get it right and Ill be in line to buy one. But not until then. There's a difference between spending $200-300 on a 60 or 120 size arf that may have some non scale things about it, but when talking bigger money....ala 600+....or even $1000 regarding the easytiger line of "%$&", no way. Waste of money if it dont look right.

ZERO-322

My Feedback: (2)

Wow Is it ironic that I'm eating popcorn as I'm reading this thread ?

dvs1

Deleted

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

The aerobatic aircraft that Aeroworks sells mostly, are not as complicated to produce as a warbird. Rocko told me this personally while discussing a future warbird for their company at the warbirds over the rockies. The Mustang took a long time to get to market. I am sure because they needed to get it right.

TA152

"Blasphemy" was ment to be self-ironic as we say here in Norway

kwik

Vallawyer,
I believed this thread was meant for discussing scale appearances of a warbird? Not attacking persons?

Some of us commenting on the KMP Fw-190-D9 was simply very dissapointed when we saw the picture.

We were hoping for another D9 just as good looking as the ESM D9, maybe even better? A so called signature plane.
No wonder the disappointment was big when we saw the picture.

I remember I once owned (and buildt) the Pica Fw 190 D9. This KMP D9 looks a bit like a blown up Pica.(with a Corsair windshield)

I loved the Pica at the time I had it.

But time has passed, and ARF's have evolved. (I buildt the Pica myself, it wasnt even an ARF. But it was more sport-scale, than scale)

Now look at the 50cc Corsair and P-40 from ESM. Wonderful ARF's, if you ask me.

Mentioning the Sist here is like comparing apples and oranges. The price-tag is doubled. By the way, Stephan has compromised a bit having
thick wing-tips on his Sist bird as well. I guess the idea is that it is better to have a bit thick wing-tip, than a tip-stalling plane.
The funny thing about that is that there are several warbirds with quite thin wing-tips that flies very well. Keep the weight down, I say.

I think that you will just have to accept that the scale deficiencies on some of the offered "warbirds" are commented online.

It will push the companies to stop selling Focke-Wulfs, Messerschmitts, Spitfires, Hurricanes that simply looks totally wacko, and for no reason at all.
( I will not mention here which ones I think looks wacko, people seems to get too upset)

Why I ask, why shouldn't we comment it when they do that? It is totally unneccesary to push such planes out on the marked in 2010.

ESM has shown us that it is perfectly possible to produce nice looking warbirds at a reasonable price. Okay so each and every one of them has weaknesses.
So we comment the weaknesses. ESM gets better. One tip to ESM; Let Ty Brown produce the canopies for you.

Hat tip to Evil Merlin; You should change your name to Evil Daimler.

GerKonig

EVil, you are a historian. Modeller you are not. I am sure you have collected a lot of reference materials of the airplanes you talk about. I am sure you wonder why dont they manufacture ATFs that are scale? I tell you why: no need, they sell them anyway. Die hard scale people build their airplanes, they do not buy arfs. Real anal scale enhusiasts are like that. And that is OK with me. I like scale airplanes...

An ARF pilot (on average that is) will prefer a scale deviation of a landing gear if it helps the plane land better, or on the tail area dimentions if it means it will fly better. And that is OK, because they are not anal as I said before. Also, if I am offered 2 scale models, and I know one is heavy and overweight, and the other not (but it deviates more from scale than the heavy one) guess which one I will get? Yes, the light one. Why? I have flun flaying my airplanes. Led sleds do not fly as well...

My 3 cents (it was 2 but I adjusted for future inflation)

Gerry
PS: Said that, scale ARFS have come a long way

Magnum RC

This comment stated, it still does not reference the sales that KMP had at the show. The one man that was offended by Kahlog proved that. It would seem to me that it is difficult to judge a plane by a less than perfect photo. I looked at it and cannot discern these details you speak of. It is a head on shot only where some of the defects that are going to be corrected by Wrangler's testimony is evident. It would appear guessing at it fills in the blanks. I am still with the opinion of Wrangler 4 that if you can't present dimensional proof after having it in your hands, whey say anything. The ESM planes are pretty and they look nice, but in my opinion, the quality of construction since the line passed to TBM, then to Arf Pros within a span of a year or so hints at something. I also have seen this plastic wing covering Wrangler speaks of that is painted.

Magnum RC

Very Well said

wiretie

I'm going to stay anonymous here, Ishould not really be revealing inside information, but once in a while, a thread has so much information that something needs to be said. Iam part-owner of a European distribution company. We do not sell either ESMor Easytiger planes. I do need to say that Easytiger has done some OEMwork for us, we have been happy with our dealings with him and his factory, and Ihave spent time with the owner both in China and in the USA and consider him to be a very nice fellow, I will see him again at the WRAMshow next week, then Iam back to Europe, so Iwill not comment on Easytiger Models, Iam not an unbiased source.

But Ihave been watching the story of KMPand ESM for a long time. ESMcontacted us long before they broke with Andrew Kondor and KMP. They had been very unhappy with him for a long time. He never did the kind of volume they expected for the US market. He would import 40 pieces of things like a single engined airplane and maybe 25 pieces of a twin. This was more akin to a territory like Sweden, not the kind of sales expected in a market as big as the United States. The other problem was he always had issues paying for the planes. Things would be ordered, and the factory would build them, and then he could not pay for them. This same thing was repeated at other factories, like SkyRC, who make that PC9, the Prodesign EDF models, and the Avro Arrow jet. The reason why people had to wait so long is because the planes were not paid for. Andrew was told he needed to pay his bills, he did not, that was the entire problem.
Iknow he talked about how the relationship was terminated because they could not produce the quality he wanted, but nothing could be further from the truth, as evidenced by the fact that as soon as Troy Built Models got them in stock, Andrew began selling the same models again, this time drop-shipped from Troy Built.
Troy Built thought they could steal a march on the rest of the world by signing up as the exclusive USdistributor for ESM, but they did not really know that the line had been shopped to virtually every different distributor in the world and rejected, for good reasons. Andrew was not so stupid on pricing, he knew from experience that these planes were not worth the trouble if you are only making 20% or so, there are just too many things to go wrong. Troy Built marked them down from $499 to $299, and it did not take long before they realized that a very high portion of the planes from ESMhave either quality control issues from the factory or shipping damage, and that a very high portion of the planes require replacement or customer service of some sort. Troy Built dropped the line very quickly, and I wish the best of luck to the new distributor, ARF Pros.
There have always been major issues with many of the ESMplanes, they have always suffered from a complete lack of test-flying and development. For a while, there was a company in the UK, YT International, that did flight testing and development work, but Ithink they gave that up. The vast majority of ESMplanes have never been flown before they are distributed, which means the customer is really the test pilot. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not. For the most part, the single engined warbirds all follow the same template of moment arms, incidence, and airfoils, so they cannot go too far wrong, but there are some planes that don't fly well at all. Without a proper flight-test regime, and perhaps changes made to the tooling, whatever comes out of the mold is going to be what is sold, whether or not it flies at all or just flies very poorly.
Hardware and landing gear are also consistent issues, it does not cost much more to put in proper hardware, and up until very recently, the ESMlanding gear was for the most part unuseable.
As far as the influence Andrew had with the ESMfactory, as far as quality and design goes, those planes were designed entirely by the ESMstaff with no influence from Andrew at all. As a matter of fact, when we visited the factory some time back, KMPwas soliciting comments and pretending to ask for customers' advice here on the internet, but the planes were already being finished at the factory.
Idon't have any problems with the way ESMplanes look, Ithink they properly adress the majority of the market, who want a good-looking sport-scale aircraft that does not cost an arm and a leg. Ido know that many customers will elect to buy a Top Flite or other aircraft instead, because of flyability issues with the ESM line, word gets around. If you have ever had to put five pounds of lead into a 72" Tiffie, you would understand. The real issues with ESMare very poor quality control, lots of shipping damage, and very little support.
This does not mean the line is a total loss, only that you need a lot of Caveat Emptor here, and while some customers are okay with the extra work needed, many are not, and feel like they have been taken.
To hear Andrew mouth off about "Models Of Distinction" and some of the things he has said here, it's a bit of a joke.
The truth is something very different, most people on the inside know the true story, and Iam surprised not one person has called him out on it.
This person Wrangler4 is obviously either Andrew Himself or his employee, Taildragger, whose name Ihave forgotten. It's a little too obvious.
That being said, Ido not like to see the manufacturer bashing that goes on here, but the fact is KMPand others come here to promote their products, they want your money, nothing more, so it's a two-way street and if their promotion goes wrong, perhaps they should reconsider coming here. You cannot have it both ways.
The comments themselves from some are far off the mark, as a post above says, the true scale builders do not want an ARF, they have to build something themselves, and the average guy does not care much about true scale.

wiretie

That being said, let me clarify that I have owned a handful of different ESM planes including some that were samples, and every one could be made to fly and for the most part, fly pretty well, some needed modification, some not.  Few customers would accept them as they were out of the box, though.  For us, the game was just not worth the candle, we were not equipped to service distribution in the United States, and much of Europe is already serviced by others.  These are just not high volume products, either.  The Hangar 9 and Top Flite and similar planes cost less, fly better, and are better accepted by the average modeller.  The volume is much higher.
But this is not to say that the ESM planes are all a dead loss, if you are a good modeller, and aware of how to properly assemble and check them, you can have a fine-looking model from one of their kits.

wiretie

I would be a little circumspect as to the sales that KMPhad at that show. Ido not think they are truthful at all about their sales, when we visited the factory, we were quite shocked to find out what the actual sales were, as compared to what KMPclaims, online or in private.
Iam reasonably sure that Wrangler 4 is indeed Andrew or his employee Taildragger anyway.

But the rest of your post is spot-on. In the first place, you cannot tell anything about the model from a single picture, and in the second, most people will be very happy with that model.

Your comments about the line being passed on twice within a year are also spot-on, there is more than meets the eye there.