Hopefully they will help you better than they helped me.

Hopefully they will give you some other story than - We have sold over 400 kits and this is the first time we heard of that.

Hopefully they will offer some words of wisdom.

Hopefully,
Hopefully,
Hopefully,


Let us know!!!

Yup...I'd have to agree with everything in the statement above.
I've been dealing with Creek for years. Always very helpful and knowledgable. I travel close to 50 miles one way just to do business with them. Remember your local hobby store? Most of us don't. They've become a dying breed. I know that there are a great deal of hobbiest in the area that are thankful for having Creek Hobbies in the area!

I've read the threads. Jim isn't patting himself on the back. He doesn't have to. His reputation speaks for itself. Especially to the people who have been dealing with him for years.

well my creek hobbies has moved on to another flyer; one of the local flyers lost his plane and did not know when he would have another one up. so i sold mine to him for 50.00 and said merry xmas and hope you enjoy the mess out of it. now i need something to put this os-160 on or sell the 160.

I had mine too nose heavy, took a 1/2 pound out of the nose. Thanks to my buddy Mark in Tulsa, now the low speed flight is a lot better, and the all up weight is only 11.5 lbs. The 1.60 fx flat hauls this thing.

I WAS ALMOST READY TO MAKE A DECISION ON A CREEK KATANA, IM GLAD FOR THIS SITE. IT HAS HELPED BY LETTING ME MONITOR OTHERS AND THERE PROBLEMS, THANKS. MY DECISION AS TO NOT BUY FROM THEM AND TO BUY FROM A MORE RESPECTABLE COMPANY LIKE GREAT PLANES, CARDEN OR LANIER, WHICH BY THE WAY I HAVE HAD GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE WITH!

Jumbo, I have also had great service from those companies you mention. Service has a much greater value than some hobby distributors realize. Do not be afraid of Quantum Models, they carry much of the non great planes stuff and there service is first rate.

I am in the process of putting together my Creek experience. Due to their threat of a slander lawsuit , I am printing off and putting together all my data on a complete and organized fashion. My write up that will follow soon will be nothing but the facts with no opinion, so the reader can made all or any decisions.

I have read the statements supporting Jim, and I notice they are customers within a close distance. I am sure Jim is a great guy, most people in the hobby are. I called in three times to talk to a real live person and each time they said someone will need to call you back. Each time they did not call they chose to e-mailed instead. It is easier to avoid questions and concerns on an e-mail. Well, that is all I am going into right now I will post soon. Everyone keep in mind that I am talking about my particular plane. All Creek wanted to do was talk about them all in general (like they all come out exactly the same) and they did not want to address that mine may actually have a problem.

This thread is about a paticular plane, and hopefully making the best of a decision to save a few bucks. I think people expect too much from ARF's. I agree some are better than others but for the most part I haven't been happy with any I've puchased. Arf's have been great getting new folks into the hobby but, if you want it built right, then you have to build it. If you really like hot glue then buy ARF's but you have to live with your decision. The opinions are already out there. If it makes you feel better to complain, that's fine but, maybe you can ask for a new foum to post in.

PEOPLE PEOPLE, give it a rest. You cannot expect the same kind of service from a mail order hobby center as you can from a Local Hobby Shop. If you want to be babied spend the extra money and support your local guy. Mail order companies deal in great volume for the most part, and do not have time to talk to everyone that has a little problem for hours on the phone, if you are dealing with internet companies that offer great prices you should expect to have to communicate through the email, if these people always had to be on the phone, the could get nothing else accomplished. Email and the internet allows less people to do a higher volume of work, ie thats how prices are cheaper on websites (for the most part) than retail outlets. Also I'm with h82crash, you can only expect so much from an ARF plane, I'm not a perfectionist so I am quite pleased with the ARF's that are out today, and even saying that the higher priced ARF's are built quite well , better than about 90% of the kit planes I have seen anyway. The point is if you are not please with a company its fine to call them and complain but come on, I work in the retail industry and a lot of people take things too far, here on RCU there is not one large company that I have not heard someone complain about, the reason I believe is that volume brings inherent problems, and kindness will get you a lot further than threats and negativity, try to be patient and work things out, of course the outcome may not come out the way you like but if that is the case explain the situation to us, and take your money else where. It always seems like a lot of people love going on witch hunts, me I take my money else where when I am not satisfied and brag on the folks that treat me right, if a company is selling junk and has bad service then they won't be around long anyway, so no reason in stressing your self out about it. I must say I have had nothing but good luck with mine, 11.5lbs, unlimited vertical and sweet handling , doesn't get much better than that.

h82crash,
Maybe I did expect too much from this arf, but I dont think it is unreasonable to expect to get what they advertise. Even at 12 1/2 pounds that is a far cray from 10 to 11. It is one thing to just not like one, it is another to have the specs just plain wrong and the company not specifically address my situation. If you do not complain and just accept what you get then the manufacturers and distributors will not have to strive to improve quality and the product will get worse and worse. As for your forum comment, this is the appropriate place for such comments. This forum is for the purpose of sharing your experiences with others. I suggest that you try to start a forum of your own if all you want to hear is the hits and not the misses. At least you can start your own thread on this forum. I suggest you call it the "sugar coated extra". If you go look this thread was started with a complaint.

Remcl, not looking for a fight. I believe your criticism of this plane was very constructive. Absolutely, I want to read about the shortcomings of a kit! I don't want to have to sift through someone's rant to get to the info, however. If you didn't like it, tell us why. If you got poor service, let us know. We've got the gist of this model a long time ago and someone felt like he got burned, as I would too in his situation. My point was, let's move on.
As for your weight issue, If you had to add any ballast it should be a last resort after moving radio gear forward. And, as for truth in advertising, my Lanier Cap kit says 12-15 lbs.....yeah, right!. Most come in at 17-19 lbs. Much further off than you are. I agree, this plane is a pig, without any lead it weighs the same as my H9 Edge.
Tom.

ummm welll i was going to say something but this paper weight just keeps getting in the way

Looks like the activity on this plane has dropped. I hope that is not because of anything said on this forum. I have not posted my result until now, because I was so disbelieving in how Creek Hobbies handled the situation. You can research this thread and others on RCU to find out that I was extremely disappointed at the weight of this plane coming out 40 percent over advertised. All Creek Hobbies had to say was it can be built at 10 pounds. They would never tell my how. I asked several times how. The only thing they had to offer was move the servos around. I have an engineering degree, and I think I read somewhere that the only way to reduce mass is to eliminate it. Just shifting it around will not reduce overall weight. The bare minimum to fly this pig weights about 13 pounds. Bottom line it can not fly at 10 pounds and they would not admit that.

Here is my customer Service experience. I called Creek Hobbies and asked for customer service. When I said what I wanted, I was told the person who I needed to talk to would have to call me back. Instead of a call I received and e-mail. They got my e-mail address off of my order information. The e-mail basically said the plane can be built as specified, but did not tell me how. I e-mailed back and said you did not answer my questions, here they are again. I received another e-mail stating that he did not have any more time for this situation. I then called back to the store and asked for Steve, the person e-mailing me. I was told they have no Steve that works for Creek Hobbies. I told them that a Steve has e-mailed me on behalf of Creek Hobbies. She said, oh I think I know who that is, but he does not work for Creek Hobbies. I said that I only wanted to deal with an actual employee and told her my name and situation. After being in hold, I was once again told that I was need to Waite for a call back. Again I did not get a call, I got an e-mail. The e-mail accused me of trying to drag someone new into an old situation and basically said we have done all we can do for you and go away. Keep in mind I still have three questions that have never been addressed. What they said they would do for me was sell me a new plane for a discounted price of $199.00. That is what I paid for the pig that I have. I don't what another one, I don't even want the one I have. My plane is in good shape just too high of wing loading and not at all what was advertised. All I really wanted was for them to tell me how to make that a 10 pound airplane or to tell me that you can not. That's all. All they had to do was fess up and say it can not be don’t. I would have chalked this up to a learning experience with advertised weights and moved on. With the unprofessional way they handled the situation, the apparent need they felt to cover up the fact that this plane is a pig, along with their threat to sue for slander, I was compelled to post on RCU and to push it a little. I say little, I could push much harder.

I can not tell you to stay away from Creek Hobbies, but I can tell you that I will never purchase a plane from them again. There are too many great ARF's out there to settle for anything less than the best.

To all concerned readers monitoring this thread, you have to read these emails for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I would love to hear your responses regarding this matter. I can not believe that it has come to this. Moderators, if you feel this is not right, please accept my apologies. It just does not seem fair for someone to trash a company for not getting what they want and for the manufacture to not be allowed to reply. Sorry that this is going to take up a lot of space and time but I feel as though it is necessary for everyone to see the lengthy conversations that took place between my staff and myself.

REMCL:
1.) We answered your questions in regards to achieving the advertised weight for this model. You did not accept them.
2.) All initial coorespondence was done through email. We did not obtain your email address from your order, we replied to your emails.
3.) In regards to your phone calls, after the first one, and the multiple emails explaining the same information time after time we made a decision that it was not going to be productive for us to continue this discussion with you any further. This was stated in our email to you.
4.) Finally, we never threatened you. In fact, reviewing the emails, quite the contrary happened. I believe you mentioned the part about RCU and the insinuated a cover up as a threat to get what I recall was a return on the plane, plus all expenses. This is where these comments started.

My direct email address is [email protected] for anyone that wishes to send me an email addressing this issue.

email coorespondence:

Dear Robert,

I am once again in receipt of your reply. We are very busy, therefore I can no longer spend the time to send these lengthy replies. We are trying to help you out the best that we can. Our conversations could go on for days about who or what is right or wrong. You explained your position, and we explained ours. The facts are the item in question has not been mis-advertised. Quite simply, built in the hands of an experienced hobbyist, the results which are expressed in all of the advertising can easily be achieved. You had a decision to make in order to achieve these results. You choose an option that apparently did not bring you the success that you were hoping to achieve. This is the path that you chose. I am quite convinced that if you had built the plane first, installed you engine second, and placed all of your radio equipment last, focused entirely on obtaining an acceptable center of gravity, the advertised results can and would have been reached. We have customers that have installed YS. 91 engines in these planes just because they are not 3D flyers and wanted adequate power. They have been successful and happy with the results. On the other end of the spectrum we have had customers install Fuji 32 gas engines, quite heavy in my opinion, and have resulted in a plane that is not within the advertised weight (thus the heavier engine) and they too have been happy with the results. But the bulk of our customers are installing the OS 1.60, Saito 1.80's and YS 1.40's and for the except few that I have mentioned in the earlier emails, they too are all happy. The option for the servo location is a decision that everyone has to make. Some consumers focus on the length of the linkage to be an issue, some people focus on the lightness and center of gravity to be an issue. Again, this is all personal preference. The ones that are mounting the servos in the tail have been informed that installing an engine that may not have sufficient enough weight to accurately obtain the recommended center of gravity may have to add noseweight (referring to the instruction manual). We see nothing that is unclear here. Again, we are sorry that you are unhappy with the model. We offered suggestions, and goodwill. We can do no more. Unfortunately in this industry you are not offered the opportunity to test fly models as you are in lets say the automobile industry. You are basing your decisions on the decision and opinions of others. As I mentioned before if you search RCU for Creek Hobbies, and read all of the threads and posts, even I would base a decision to buy a model from Creek on the feedback. Does this necessarily mean that I may be 100% satisfied as the many others are? Who knows.....this is the situation that we are all subject to when buying any model in the industry. There comes a certain time when we have to sit back, look at what we got, evaluate it's worth to us, and make a decision to keep it because it brings happiness to me, or to get rid of it and move on to something else that may satisfy my needs better. This is why we have Ebay, RCU, etc. It is a way for us to sell what we have to move on to something that we think may satisfy us better. In your case, you have made it clear that changing the installation, although apparently the right thing to do, will not make you happy. Is this the fault of the plane, or the manufacture? I say no. The results are achievable....if they were not are reputation would be tarnished and the sales would diminish. This has not been the case. We do our best to satisfy every customer, but again as stated in previous replies, sometimes this goal can not be achieved. Our previous gesture of goodwill stands, this is all we can do.

In regards to the issue of slander, we take this very seriously. We did not threaten you. We treat these situations one in the same. You have the right to free speech, however legally there are certain laws that prohibit slanderous remarks, and defamation of character. We are not attorneys, therefore we leave these situations up to the professionals to evaluate. Our opinion of your bringing up RCU, and how you represented yourself, suggested the intended use as leverage. We assumed this to be a bargaining tool on your part, or possible a threat. We hope this was not the case.



Sincerely,

Steve
Creek Hobbies

----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Mclarty
To: Sales
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 1:18 PM
Subject: Re: Attention Steve


Steve,

There is no need to be so pointed, I am not unreasonable. I completely understand what you are saying. I realize this will not go far, so there will be no need for me to reply in any great detail. I would like only to point out a few things. First the web page you refer to is a general one and not one specific to the extra and referees to a supplied fuse tray. The supplied fuse tray only has one servo cutout intended for the throttle. There is no means in this ARF to comply with that direction. The directions supplied with this ARF does show a tray that has three cutouts. It also suggests that the servo can be moved forward or weight may be needed to achieve balance with a light motor. This is fine, but I am not using a light 120 class motor (YS 140L). You say servos in the tail or in the fuse is an option. The weight is given in a range. The range is 10 to 11 pounds. I read this as if you build as intended using the tail cutouts provided it would be 11 pounds. If you move the servos forward you could achieve the 10 pounds. There is truly no option to put the servos in the tail. They have to go in the fuse. My contention is I want the option to put the servos in the tail and that is not an option. Also you can not achieve 10 to 11 pounds with this plane.

If you still say the 10 to 11 pounds is right, how do you suggest I get there. I don't care how much I move around stuff the only way to lose weight is to take things off. The only non-flying stuff that I can take off is the added nose weight. If I can get it all off, I will still weight between 12 and 13 pounds. This will be better, but not the 10 and 11 you say it is. This is 20 to 30 percent more than your website states on the Extra specifications page. If I redesign and make this plane the lightest I can I would expect to come in at the 10 pounds or so, I would not have complained at the 11 pounds. I found that most ARFs and kits can fudge a little on the weight.

I am certainly more than capable to re-do all the servo locations and make this ARF work. Just so you know where I am coming from I wanted a plug and play arf, and that is not what I got. Maybe those just don’t exist and I have the wrong impression of what "Almost" really means.

In regards to your threatening a lawsuit, slander does not apply in this case. On top of that, I have not stated anything that is not fact. My bringing up RCU was to allow you to have the option for me not to disclose the detail of any deal we may work out. I understand that all customers and situations should be treated individually. Another customer may think he is entitles to the same deal, when circumstances do not warrant. That is why I think the amount of people that are happy or unhappy is irrelevant in this case. I am sure there are many people happy with a 14 pound slug. I am not I was after a 10 to 11 pound 3D Extra.

I am sure we can work something out. Let me have more details.

----- Original Message -----

From: Sales
To: Robert Mclarty
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2003 12:05 PM
Subject: Re: Attention Steve


Robert,

I am in receipt of your reply and I have discussed your situation with management. We all came to the same conclusion and have this to say. We appreciate your piloting skills and are considering this in this reply, however, as we have stated many times, we have sold many of these planes and even in the thread you attached, there are more people commenting success and happiness then the few repeat posters that are commenting dis-satisfaction. And out of the ones that are commenting dis-satisfaction, we as a company have addressed the issues with all of them and these select few were not happy with the offers we made them to remedy the situation, or the fact that in some cases, we do not feel that Creek Hobbies was negligent.

In your specific case, I first want to give you the link to the information about our planes posted on our website: http://creekhobbies.com/120class.html . You will see that our advertising specifically states: We give you the option to mount the servos in the tail, or in the supplied fuselage servo tray in order to obtain a perfect center of gravity without adding additional weight. A complete hardware package with the exception of a spinner is included in the kit. Finally, we put a lot of effort into the packaging of the model. All of the pieces are foam wrapped and bagged to insure safe delivery and to protect the finish. Also, referring to our ads in RCM, Model Aviation, and Model Airplane News, every add has the very same Feature description and I quote from the description: We give you the option to mount the servos in the tail, or in the supplied fuselage servo tray in order to obtain a perfect center of gravity without adding additional weight. If you do a little research you will see this for yourself. If you had read this information, and with your experience, built the plane as an experienced modeler would, considering the CG issues, you would have, and could have eliminated the extra weight that you choose to add to your model in order to obtain a proper CG based on your set-up configuration. It was your preference to install the servos in the tail of the airplane. Many people have and still do, it is how it is done, where the rest of the equipment in located, the engine selection that is allowing them success with this setup. According to your current CG, you still have another half inch of room to balance the plane further back. With your experience, this should not be an issue. This is another way that you can remove some of the additional weight you choose to add. This will also bring the weight of the model back to the advertised weight.

IN regards to your comments about moving the servos up front, it sounds like in your case, because of the setup that you choose that would have been the right thing to do. You would not have had any of the problems that you have discussed. This plane was designed to have the servos installed in either location front or rear. This is a decision that needs to be made based on your preference of setup and the CG issues. As I said before, with the exception of the Edge and the Sukhoi, we mounted all of the servos for the elevators in the tails of our prototype planes and the rudder servo in the fuse with a pull-pull. Most pilots with experience know how to, and what needs to be done in order to achieve the results of a lightweight, perfectly CG'd airplane. These are not beginner planes and are not advertised to be. It is expected that the pilots that are building these planes have the experience and knowledge to build these correctly and precisely. As far as your claim that we have mis represented ourselves and this product line, or falsely advertised these models, I think that we have made our case above that this is absolutely not the case. We have insured that all of the necessary information needed to build these models successfully has been supplied. You did not build the plane as it was intended, you built it the way that you intended. I refund for the plane is simply out of the question. There is no design flaw with the plane....the setup is not correct. There was no omission of information in our advertising, as you can see in the link to our site above and all of the advertising that is in print, we disclosed all of very information that you are complaining about in print. This information has been in print since the inception of this product line. This information is not new. It is for this reason that we as a company do not feel that we are obligated to "make you whole again" and pay you for all of the expenses that you wish to be paid for. However, for the simple reason that we as a company do try to do whatever it takes, within reason, to make every customer happy, we are willing to offer you a discount on your next Creek model airplane purchase. We have three new models that are coming in very shortly and if you are interested, we will offer you a discount on any of the three in order to show good faith. I must make it clear however, this is a gesture of goodwill, we do not agree with the complaints that you have presented to us regarding the product in question.

In regards to RCU. It is your prerogative to do, or say as you wish. That is your right. Keep in mind though that everything that we as a company have stated here is fact. And any statements of slander will be dealt with legally. We are not at fault here. We have not mis-represented ourselves. We are offering a discount as a sign of goodwill. If you do not agree with our statements, again that is your perogative and we are sorry that we could not satisfy you as a customer. Unfortunately in this business we found that we have not been able to make everyone happy. We are very happy to say that we satisfy 99.9 percent of our consumers. There are a select few as I stated above that simply did not agree with the options that were presented to them and have reported so on RCU, but we as a company did offer them options and they elected not to pursue them. You can search Creek Hobbies on RCU and do your own evaluation, we have done this often. There are many, many consumers that are very happy with their Creek product line purchase. There are very, very few that are not. In closing, we hope that once you have read all of the information that we have provided to you today you will come to the same conclusion we have and we thank you for your anticipated understanding and consideration in this matter.


Sincerely,

Steve
Creek Hobbies

----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Mclarty
To: Sales
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 9:33 PM
Subject: Re: Attention Steve


Steve,

Thank you for the reply. I have flown the plane since I last talked to Dave. I have never crashed it, only knocked the landing gear off due to either either forced hot landing or the last one was a hard landing due to no glide slope. See this thread for more details. http://www.rcuniverse.com/showthread...a&pagenumber=3 I am also an accomplished pilot and not to brag better than most. I due the bulk of the test piloting for our 170 member club. I know how to handle and fly a plane in this catagory. I am sure this is why this plane is still in one piece with the exception of marks made by the landing gear on the two landings described above. My problem is not so much with the C.G. itself it is with the weight needed to get there. The plane weighs over 14 pounds. I understand you helped a gentleman remove weight, so I will tell you what I have and you can tell me what you think. I have no idea how I can reduce any weight without a redesign. I have built and flown many kits, and scratchbuilt planes. I am from the North were the only thing you do in the winter is build. Now I am in Florida were no one builds so I thought I would get into the ARF game. I know I can save weight, by moving the rudder servo to the fuse, but I will not do that. The plane is designed to have the servo in the tail and should balance to spec that way. The servos in the tail is what drew me to this plane. Here is what I have. Three hitec 605 servos in the tail. Standard extensions with one a reversing "y". A sulivan tail whel and spring (the one with the white plastic base should not be heavy). I have a 20 oz tank in the fuse over the C.G. I have two fuel dots located at the C.G on the left side of the fuse. I have a hitec 422 for the throttle in the tray that came with the model. I added a 1/4 - 20 bolt to the wing, becasue the spring did not seem to be enough. I have a Jtec snuf-vibe mount. I have a YS 140L mounted as for forward as it will go and still stay in the cowl. Actually it is farther forward than what really looks good, but I wanted to squeeze every MM that I could. I have a 2 1/2" MPI aluminum spinner. I have a 18 X 4 APC W 3D prop. The YS has a stock muffler. I have a Hitec 605 mounted in each wing and standard extensions. I have a Hitec seven channel receiver mounted on the inside of the firewall. I have a 1600 MAH NMH 6 volt battery mounted on the inside of the firewall. I used Dubro heavy duty control horns (the ones that are a bolt and the horn srews onto it). I balanced the plane just like any other that I have balanced. I inverted it and placed it on a balance set up that I have. I have it balanced at 4 1/2 inches. This is what Dave recomended I use and he said this is what the test planes fly at. The C.G is fine the plane flys and the pitch is well in control. I balanced the plane right. The main problem is the overall weight it took to get there. I am over 14 pounds. This is way too high of wing loading. I know I can save weight by moving the tail servos into the fuse. I can also move the tank back to the tank location. By moving all three servos to the fuse and moving the tank up front, I may even get to the 10 to 11 pounds advertised, maybe. I feel that I should not have to do that. I was drawn to the plane and bought it for the fact that it was designed to have the servos in the tail. I built and flew a Goldberg extra with a YS 120 in it for years. It is a great plane. They only thing I did not like was the push rods and torque rods on the elevator and rudder so when I saw this one with I servos in the tail and it was still at 10 to 11 pounds I bought it. I bought an arf I want an arf. I see that some people are taking the covering off of the bottom and re-doing the set up. When I build a plane, I always put the control rods or pull - pull systems in before the covering is on. I think it defeats part of the reason why someone wants to buy an arf. With the exception of the landing gear not still attached the plane is all in one piece. The underside of the wing and the bottom of the cowl has a little damage. The wheel pants are shot. It is by far not a pile of sticks. I could have it back in the air in about an hour. I am not trying to get you to pay for a crash that I have caused. I know lots of people that have tried that. I have not crashed the plane, only dorked it in. Under power it landed fine, hot but in my hands fine. The plane is flyable, but it is not what you sold me. I am sure you can not find a way for me to loose 3 to 4 pounds and still keep the servos in the tail as per plan, I would like you to refund my entire purchase price including shiping. If you would like the plane back, I have no problem with sending it to you: I do not want it, you should pay for that expense as well. My basis is I bought a 10 to 11 pound plane (see http://www.creekhobbies.com/extra330.html ) This plane was built as the manufacturer intended and it is 40 percent over target. Your website does not say that it is 10 to 11 pounds if certain modifications are made. I think because of this omition in your advertising, and I bought the plane based on this advertising, you are obligated to make me whole again and pay for all expenses related to this sale. I had far more expenses then these, but I will be happy with the cost of the plane plus all shipping. If we can come to an agreement, I will let the R/C universe crowd know that you satisfied me without disclosing anything you do not want published.

Thank you for your understanding and consideration in this matter.

Robert McLartyy

----- Original Message -----
From: Sales
To: Robert Mclarty
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 7:14 PM
Subject: Re: Attention Dave


Dear Mr. Mclarty,

Sorry for the delay in our response to your email. David is no longer with us, and unfortunately your email was forwarded to his account which was removed today. In regards to your comments, unfortunately I do not have any record of the conversations that you had with David, but I can assure you that we have been selling these planes for almost two years now. I have monitored RCU and have seen some of the complaints about the CG and the need for additional weight in the nose, I am also aware of many more people that are having very good success with their models, that are very happy, and do not have any complaints. I have personally flown every one of our models. I have been flying for twenty years + now and have competed in IMAC, etc. I am a giant scale flyer, Carden's, etc. I am telling you this not to brag about my knowledge, but to tell you that I do know what I am talking about, and that you are not speaking with someone that is "faking" it. In regards to the Extra specifically, we fly our plane with the CG at just a hair over 5" from the leading edge at the root. This is an acceptable CG and the plane can be flown at 5.5" back in the hands of an experienced pilot that is use the planes with an aft CG. We have flown our planes with everything from Webra 1.2's to OS 1.60, OS 1.20, YS 120 & 140, Saito 1.20 - 1.80's and 3W 24's. I can honest tell you 100% truthfully that we have not added any extra weight to any of our airplanes to make them fly. I can tell you that a lot of thought went into the setup of every one of these planes. We assembled the planes entirely,installed the engine, muffler, spinner, and propeller and saved the radio gear for last. WE have the elevator servos in the tail on the Katana, Extra, Staudacher, and the new Giles. We moved the servos up in the fuse for the Sukhoi, and the Edge. We mounted the batteries in the appropriate position in order to achieve an acceptable CG. On some planes this meant mounting the battery to the engine box, on others it was on the CG. We did nothing special to these planes. Every one of our planes weigh anywhere from 10 3/4 to 12lbs in the glow engine size frame, 12.5 with the gas engine. All of these planes have been flown many times, by many people. They do fly really well, and they do 3D very well. Are they the same as a 40% Carden? No. But they also do not cost anywhere near a Carden either. These planes were introduced as a "disposable" plane concept to a certain degree so that you could comfortably perform maneuvers that you may not elect to try with your $1,000 - 5,000 plane. I can not tell you exactly how many, but we have many people that have bought 2 and in some extreme cases as many 5 of the same plane form us. I have seen the quotes on RCU about the 500+ sold, but honest we have sold closer to 600. We know that there will always be people out there that may not be happy with the product. This is fair and everyone is entitled to their opinion. Some people like chocolate, and some people like vanilla. The end result is that it is not always the product that is to blame, it is the taste of the consumer. Specifically to address your issues, we would like to do everything to make you happy, but I am not sure exactly what your discussions with Dave were. We do strive to make everyone happy, the best that we can, but our company policy is that we do not send out any components to any planes without having the questionable part(s) sent back for us to evaluate. We like to see if there was something specifically wrong with your plane, and if there was, we do what is right and then we send the defective parts back to China for them to evaluate and possibly make design changes in the future. I can tell you that there has not been one problem with anyone of these planes that have lead into a re-design or a recall. I will give you a specific example, I had a guy last week call me from New York that wanted to return a new Sukhoi that he had just built because he had to add over 3 lbs of nose weight to his plane to make it balance. This brought the all up weight up to 14 lbs. Truly this should have not been the case. We discussed the installation over the phone and he offered to drive down here to show me the next day. He did just that. Sure enough he had 3.2 lbs of nose weight in the plane according to my digital scale, and the plane weighed 14.2 pounds. After careful inspection of the plane, we found that he had installed the servos in the tail except for the rudder servo which was in the fuse set up as pull-pull. One of the first problems was that he was not balancing the plane with the proper CG measurement. Secondly, he had his battery pack under the tray that he had made for the rudder servo. After moving his battery pack up to the engine box area, changing the higley hub to a truturn spinner, adding an apc prop instead of the zinger wood prop and re-calculating the proper CG the 3.2 lbs of lead weight was removed and the plane balanced at just under 5" back from the leading edge at the root. This was acceptable. Now his plane weighs 11.2 lbs with an OS 1.60 in it, and he flew it over the weekend. He got four flights on it, called me from the field, and was very thankful that I took the time to straighten out his plane and he said it flew "awesome" until he caught a clump of grass and broke the landing gear. We sent him off a new gear today and he will be ready to fly again this weekend. Now obviously I can not do this for everyone, the distance is a problem, but as you can see, it is not always our fault, or a design failure, but the way the installation was completed. I am not saying that this is what exactly has happened in your case, but something just does not add up. As I stated before, I monitor RCU, and I saw one of your posts saying that you are flying your plane again, so what parts do you need? I will try to work this out with you the best I can. Sorry for the lengthy email, but I wanted to address all of the issues that you commented on below to insure closure to this issue. If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me via email. This is the best way, I can get back to you much faster. You can contact me at this same email, just address the mail to Steve.


Sincerely,

Steve
Creek Hobbies

----- Original Message -----

Robert,

In regards to your comments, we have talked with you, several times in fact. Stemming back to your original calls I believe in December to David. I am sorry, but my personal opinion is we have gone way beyond the call of duty to provide you with the best customer service. You have totally disregarded everything that we have told you and continue to question how you can make your specific installation work without all of the weight that you added to the nose of this aircraft. We told you how you can remedy the problem to obtain the results that you are looking for. It is your choice if you elect to make this change or not. There is no other service that we can provide you in order to satisfy your needs.
I have once again reviewed your emails and feel as though we have addressed all of your questions. We have nothing further to add. For your information, Steve is in my Customer Service Department which is located in a different facility than you had called. Steve is a newer employee and spends most of his day replying to emails addressing customers questions.
Please read through all of the emails that we have sent to you once again, I am sure that you will see the answer to the question you stated below answered several times. We have told you how to make this plane come in at the advertised weight.
In regards to our offer to you, I see no where in any of your emails where you have asked for more details on the discount that we have offered to you. We are expecting delivery of our next shipment any day now. They have been in Las Angeles for the past five days now and I hope to have them here by the middle of next week at the latest. At that point we will be inspecting them all, and begin shipping them. We are receiving the new 72" Katana, 72" Giles 202, and the 3D Quest pattern plane. All of these planes are now selling for $249.99. This will be the new permanent price for the planes. We can sell you any one of these three for $199.99 shipped. Shipping alone on these planes is $35 - $40.00. I hope now with this information we can put an end to this situation.


Sincerely,

Jim Eble
Creek Hobbies

----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Mclarty
To: Jim Eble
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 7:48 PM
Subject: Re: Creek Hobbies


This is the second time that I called in and I was told that I would be called back and I received an e-mail instead. I am sorry, but I like the old fashion personal contact better. Steve has not answered my questions and when he stated that he was too busy for lengthy responses, I called Creek Hobbies to talk to him. My intention was to call Steve not your staff. When I asked for Steve the person that answered the phone told me that there was no Steve that worked there. I said that a Steve e-mailed me after my last phone call in and I replyed to his e-mail. She said she thought she knew who that was and he does not work for Creek Hobbies. I said that I really wanted to deal with someone who works for Creek Hobbies. She gave me a customer service person. I asked the customer service person the question that Steve avoided. I will just accept the fact that you will not tell me how to make this plane 10 to 11 pounds when the bare min equipment and plane add up to 12 1/2 pounds.

Steve offered a discount toward another purchase. In my last e-mail I told Steve that I understood what he was saying and understood that this was not going any further and asked for more details on the discount. Steves last e-mail which was only his second, could have closed this issue.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Eble
To: Robert McLarty
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 5:25 PM
Subject: RE: Creek Hobbies


Dear Robert,

I am writing to you today in regards to the situation with your complaint. I have discussed this situation with Steve in Customer Service twice now and I believe we have made our feelings regarding this matter perfectly clear.
He has presented to me that you are now calling-in and quizzing our staff about this same situation. This is not productive for my Sales Staff and they have been instructed to forward your calls to me personally. I do not know how to make this any clearer, I have read all of your emails and those from Steve. My determination is the same.
In closing, I hope my involvement will bring closure to this issue. If you have any further comments, please address them to me and I will discuss them with you personally. You can reach me at the email address listed above.


Sincerely,


Jim Eble
President
Creek Hobbies Unlimited
4319 Route 130 South
Edgewater Park, NJ 08010


PS Sorry that I posted these out of order, but I did included the dates for reference. I know that this is ridiculous, but so is this situation.

I, too am a little confused as to why remcl's plane came out so heavy. I got curious about what mine weighs (I have the Creek Staudacher - pretty much the same plane) so I just put in on the scales. Mine comes out at 11lbs, 12oz. My setup consists of an OS 1.60 with a Bisson Pitts style muffler, Hitec 625 single servo for elevator and Hitec 645 for rudder. Both are mounted in the fuse, just behind the wing tube. I will mention here that there was no mention of mounting the elevator servos in the fuse in my instructions, and no servo tray was supplied. This may be one of the differences between the planes. I am also using a MK bellcrank mounted under the stab for the elevators. I also added som tail bracing for my own peace of mind. I had trouble getting the stab glued in as good as I wanted and felt I needed some extra insurance. Tank is right behind firewall, 1600 6V pack is mounted on the engine box. I have replaced the supplied gear (I broke them with a hard landing) with some 1/4" aluminum ones left over from a Walt Moucha Marquart Charger. These are surely heavier than the supplied gear.

When I first built the model, I mounted the elevator servos in the tail, and the rudder servo in the fuse on a pull pull. With this setup, I had to add about 12oz of lead to the nose to balance it. Still, at this weight, it flew fine. Seemed to float forever on landing. Now, at 12 oz lighter, it flies really nice.

Could I have met the 11lb range? Possibly, with lighter electronics or a lighter engine. Am I unhappy because it came out heavier than advertised? No. (of course, mine didn't weigh 14 lbs, either)

I haven't seen any ARFs yet that would meet the advertised weight, unless you happen to get lucky with the wood in the model.

I'm sorry,but I have to chime in here also.I have the Creek Katana with a 3W24 engine with a Johnson pitts muffler and my weight is 11 lbs. 12 ozs.My set up is 2 Hitec 605's for elev. in the tail,a Hitec 645 for rudder in the fuse just behind the wing tube on a pull-pull,2 Hitec 625's in the wings for ailerons,and a Hitec 85mg for throttle.Ignition battery and ignition are on the engine box.Receiver and 1600ma 4.8 volt battery are on inside of firewall.I have my CG at 4 3/4".I too had to replace my landing gear with alum. after a rough landing.This plane is a 3D machine.Flat spins,knife edge spins,and just about the best tumbling I've seen.Yes,it's a little heavier than I hoped,but no complaints here.
As far as the customer service at Creek.I thinks it's A1.Everyone there has taking time to talk to me about every question I called them with.Jim has gotten on phone with me and helped out.
So here is one satisfied customer Jim.Thank You !!!

Hank

Its obvious that Creek Hobbies cares about there customers, and has a respectable amount of customer service if not Jim would not have taken all the time with the replies. I work at an internet based company and have seen many people who I guess get there "kicks" from "over complaning", there is only so much an internet company can do, if you find that you are never satisfied with internet transactions I suggest spending a couple of extra dollars and go to a retail outlet.

remcl come on man, just sale your plane and get something else. Your going to get a tumor over this deal, is it really worth all of the trouble???

Jim I love my extra 330 11.5 lbs with 1.60 fx unlimited perfomance.


Michael

remcl:
In my posts I have said that if you move the servos out of the tail and into the fuselage, that this would eliminate the need for most if not all of the nose weight most people have hap to add. This would lower the weight of the plane. I did this on mine and I required no additional weight.

Stephen M. Latus, P.E.

Remcl,

We heard you the first time. No need to bring this up again. Your comment about, "Looks like the activity on this plane has dropped. I hope that is not because of anything said on this forum. " makes me laugh. Sure you do.

I think we all know there are a few people who are NOT happy with this plane. We also know that there are a few people who ARE happy. We also know that there are people who believe in UFO's.

I have no problems with people expressing their concern, but there was no need to bring this back up again.... a month after the last post... except to cause problems.

Mike
Creek Extra w/ 160FX.

Just some more input - I had a Creek Hobbies Extra with a MVVS 1.6 Gas engine with all servos in the tail with an all up weight of 12lbs. It was a great flying plane until I dumb thumbed the exit of an inverted flat spin. You can guess the result. I liked it so well I am thinking of trying out one of their new ARF's.

Mark