I recently sent VF an e-mail about the wheel pants that come with the kits that they sell. Here is a copy of the e-mail and the response that I got back from them.



I had one of your 66 inch extra 300's and it was my favorite plane. I lost it due to radio equipment failure and plan to replace it in the near future. I would like to say that your plane was and still is the best money that I have ever spent on any RC product. I have had around 50 different planes and none of them have been the price for quality that yours was. I am an avid follower of the threads on RC Universe. I am online every day and read all of the threads that interest me. I follow the Vector Flight threads and always respond to most of them. I tell everyone who is interested about your products. I plan on doing a build and flying review on the next one that I build. One thing that I would like to comment on is the wheel pants that are included in your kits. For most fliers they only last a few flights and they get trashed easily. Since your kits are made with such high quality and you only use quality hardware. I would like to make a suggestion that you look at replacing the wheel pants with a high quality item. I have found a low cost alternative that you could use in place of the ones that come with the kit. Take a look at the SIG part # SIGSH378. These are the ones that come with the Sig somethin extra and fit very well on your models. The retail cost from Sig is 7.50 per set. I bet you could get them much cheaper than that. I don't think that any customer would complain about a 7.50 cost increase to get some high quality wheel pants that look great and last a long time. I have flight tested these wheel pants on my plane and had 250+ flights on them when my plane crashed. I have since installed them on another plane and have around another 100 flights on them. This is just a suggestion to help make your outstanding plane kits even better. Your customer service is one of the best in the business. I will always be a supporter of your planes and plan to get another soon.

Rick Roscoe


Dear Rick:

Thank you very much for your message. We sincerely appreciate your posts at RC Universe and are indebted to you for all your kind words and recommendations. Thank you !!

Yes, you are quite right, the wheel pants need to be improved! There shouldn't be such a difference in durability and quality between the rest of the airplane and the wheel pants, but they were originally designed to hold up well. In fact the material is supposed to be shatter proof, somewhat similar to clear 4 liter soda bottles, only much stronger. We were actually surprised they are not holding up well. The Polycarbonate/PETG plastics we use are engineering plastics and are not supposed to crack even if you strike them hard with a sharp heavy object. It seems that there is some residual heat related embrittlement of the plastic after it is heat molded. We are looking into a tampering process which will remove the brittleness of the material and make them very tough. We are also considering making them from a heavier gauge material in the immediate future.

We will also be checking with an external supplier such as Sig to provide our wheel pants. Thank you for the suggested wheel pants.

Thanks again Rick for your feedback. You have been a great customers and we sincerely appreciate your writing to us and bringing this to our attention.

Very best regards,

Chuck Weber
VF


I got this response from them the very nest morning. Talk about great customer service. I have had nothing but great service from vectorflight from the very first time that I contacted them. I am in no way connected to VF but will continue to support thier products by telling everyone that I can about this great company.

Rick
One very satisfied Customer.