Hello my fellow RC'ers. I too am shocked by the price increases for kits. I have bought a decent amount of kits from tower hobbies over the past several years. Overall, I have about 40 airplane kits in my collection. But, I would have to be desperate to buy kits from TH at these prices. Now, I agree that balsa is being used for other things than airplane kits. I know that it is harder to get balsa, but it is not impossible. I can understand that the overall cost of balsa is higher. But the price of balsa has not increased so much or that it is so difficult to get that kit prices go up $20-$40 dollars overnight. I could see prices increasing $5-$10 for some kits. Heck, I would pay $5 more to save me the time of cutting balsa for a plane. It was said that SIG increased their prices and they have, but only by about $5 per kit on average. I see that being the true cost to do business. As far as I can tell, Balsa USA has kept their prices the same. Back to SIG, they are known for selling airplane kits. That is their main business. So, to see such a small increase and somewhat consistent across the board on their kits tell me that a small increase in price for TH's kits would be understandable. But really, $40 increase for an Ultrasport 60?? Now for anybody that has built any size Ultrasport kit, there is alot of wood that goes into that airplane. I believe that TH is either trying to get out of selling kits all together or they are trying to make a bigger profit off a niche part of the hobby amidst talks that balsa is being used for so many other things (wind turbine blades, floatation in ships) and figure that we will go along with it because Balsa is almost impossible to get (which it is not and probably never will be - Balsa trees are considered weed trees because of how quickly they grow). I think that I will probably not buy any kits from them in the future (except I might pick up two more Ultrasport 40s - they did not go up in price) and start spending my money on buying balsa in bulk and build from plans (after I build some of my kits). The nice thing about building from plans is there are so many planes to choose from that are not available in kit or ARF form and you would have a show piece at your club for people to look at and talk about.

Happy flying and soft landings!