ORIGINAL: Kris^

One of the great things about these forums is the immunity of the "Bully Pulpit" that is full of disgruntled people who just love to slather criticism without seeing the big picture, or accepting responsibility for their mistakes. When the BME XTreme110 was first announced I sent Keith full payment for 2 engines, told him to deposit the checks, and waited. I KNEW it would be a while, but I had confidence in BME and the product. I now have my 2 110's, and a 102 modified to a 106X, and just sent payment for another Xtreme. I'm not particularly worried about when the engine will get here, but I know that it WILL get here.

The MISTAKE a lot of people in this hobby make is expecting things to go perfectly, no matter if it's with their own equipment, flying conditions, or a company or vendor. As has been proven time and again with other companies, the product is NEVER finished on time (How long did you ALL wait for the DA100 and 50???. . oh, and WHERE or WHERE is the 75???), the product many times is not as good as it is promoted as being (3W. .are you listening?????), and then I often see inane mistakes made by a modeler that result in blame-mongering toward the manufacturer.

I think it's time a lot of us grew up and accepted that many times thigns do NOT happen WHEN we want them to, to the degree we wished, and sitting around kvetching about it does nothing but make matters worse in most cases. Many times these forums remind me of a caffe-klatch, full of old women complaining about bad marriages for their daughters, and this thread has already descended to that level.

Someone stated that the folks at Don's Hobby said that Keith had been sick lately. Coming from Don's Hobby, I'd take that as an accurate statement because they are a very reputable business. If that is the case, I'd SUGGEST that you take your business to the next vendor on your short list of acceptable (PERFECT!!!. . yeah. . right) businesses you deal with. What you will get, though, is a product that is much heavier, less powerful, yet still costs the same. If, however, you are determined to have a BME engine, I'd SUGGEST sending Keith payment for it (knowing it might be a while), and accept the fact that it might not be on your doorstep yesterday. If you send a check, it will be deposited when the engine is shipped, and not beforehand.

BME has the capacity to build about 15-20 110's a week, and a like number of 50's or other engines. They are working off a 500 person backlog, repairing damaged engines, AND trying to talk on the phone. . . I've handled the phone for them once. . it took a LOT of time, 4-6 hours in only one day alone. Maybe, just maybe, they can't talk on the phone AND build engines at the same time . .Maybe, as Don's Hobby intimated, Keith is not quite 100% right now, so being all cheery and the "perfect" business everyone demands is just not possible . .and maybe, just maybe, no one realizes just how tough it really is to do this sort of thing for 10 years straight, put up with the constant complaints and whining, problems and shortcomings, and still smile at people on a daily basis.

This little Kaffe-Klatch is over.