DFlynt, I'll be blunt too.

My heavy "wood roaches" are about 10 lbs and under, and have a record of 13 wins, one international, and only 2 placings that weren't first PERIOD. Lower classes yes, but I'll take my wood "roaches" any day of the week over your $1600 can't get parts pieces of garbage. I build the darned things for a living, I should know wth I'm talking about. How are you doing up there in master land? Those euro planes helping you any? Or are they just kool? Legitimate question.

Furthermore, you have never seen my planes up close, so how would you know anything about the quality? Because they're wood? Then why is it everyone raves about the quality of the Japanese planes, and yet they are ALL wood?

If you think ANY plane by ZN or PL is "durable" then you don't fly nearly as much as I do. My #1 roach has almost 800 flights on it since last June, and the only difference is I lost a chin cowl.

One last detail, you may have noticed I'm not the only one. Would you like to know how many copies of those tempest drawings I've mailed out? Hundreds. MANY hundreds. My oh my there's a lot of roaches out there, so obviously our roaches have some appeal. Don't be suprised if you see a couple at the worlds this year, I know of a few teams who are building them.

I found your last post to be downright insulting, ill informed, and somewhat concieted.

Let's see how my roaches do over the next coupel of years shall we?

-Mike

Edit in: I also wanted to add that I'm an A&P, specializing in structures and composites on heavy commercial jets. So I know a few things about composites. I mess with pattern planes because I like the challenge, and I know a few things about building airplanes. I find the notion that "we" want better stuff is very ill informed. "we" do want better stuff, but from what I've seen lately, it ain't the same "we" you seem to be referring to. I'm not selling jack, I'm simply sharing some drawings that make a good plane better. I noticed Bill Ahrens did pretty well with a T2K this past year....

Soon I'll offer up some stuff for people that want something like this, but believe me, I'm not anticipation getting guys like you to build it. But the guys in those 2 threads, (and for every one of them there's 100 that don't post), will have a viable option to these euro kits that people like you are raving about. I never said the plane itself sucked, but they have just as many problems as any other plane, and on 3 different designs the factory wing tube location was in the wrong place and had to be moved.

I actually feel a bit sad for you, because you just don't get it. If you like having the kool toys that's one thing, but don't make the mistake of ACTUALLY believing they are better. They aren't. But they have you fooled, because they do offer some good advantages. The problem with a wood 2 meter kit is the wood needed. It's hard to get in any vast supply. But any problem can be overcome. I do not intend to offer a full kit anyway, but I may offer a short kit and a VERY detailed set of plans and instructions. Just for a few........hundred people........and that suits me just fine.

-M