I recently read a post that is currently "locked out" and it was about a major hobby distributor being an evil machine that didn't care about the customer. This (RCU) customer expressed that the major mail order company has given him the "shaft" in the service department, now I don't know about most of you out there but I find that most mail order companies try their hardest to offer the best prices and reasonable product support. I only believe that you are entitled to full customer support at your local hobby shop, after all that is the price we pay for saving a buck or two. The company that is caught in the cross-fire of this members sights has a long history with me and I still have every receipt form day one of dealing with them, every time I had a problem with the product they sold me, they promptly replied and resolved my situation. I once bought a replacement canopy for one of their planes I had and it arrived partly dented, after calling them they told me not to worry and I had one three days later, they didn't even want the old one back! But here's the cream of the crop, I bought a 1/3 scale Pitts from a local hobby shop and sat on it for 6 months unbuilt, one day I opened the tower talk and saw the new christan eagle, so I called them and asked if I could get the christian eagle instead. To my suprise they said that I could send the pitts to them and they would send me the christian eagle as long as my pitts was NIB and I paid the shipping, now how's that for customer service! I let the cat out of the bag with plane names but I believe that tower hobbies does a great job selling me product and helping me resolve problems with my products, bought through them or a authorized dealer of their products. I managed two retail stores and I give tower hobbies an A+ in their customer support, the only thing they don't do is install the part for you!, just try to get TREK, Cannondale or Ride snowboards to send you free parts in one phone call, they won't![:-]