Still too much blame being laid at Rei and Al's door, IMHO.

The crash of the tech bubble in the stockmarket, and the cataclysmic collapse of RAM were 2 of the greatest examples of "Self-Fullfilling Prophecy" in 2000-2002. I know Ghost Rider knows about S-F-P, but for those who don't, the trendy term is "slippery slope" with a touch of CYA!! Once you get the avalanche going, ain't no stoppin' that mountain of snow!

The bailout of not only scores of RAM owners, but the early bailout of most of the reps, assured collapse of RAM, more than a few shed turbine blades or wet starts.

For those with a failing short-term memory like mine, before the guys in the Black Forest stopped micro-managing the U.S. Market from the woods and let Bob Wilcox have a hand at it, the JetCat scene in the U.S. was on the verge of collapse. Took me 5 months to get my old P-80 overhauled----no new engines for months, no spare parts, no prices on the spare parts, engines that cooked the combustors and propane wicks if you played around at full throttle after takeoff, ECU's that spiked the RX, etc. Those were the days of those great air-start RAM's produced and supported by two of the greatest guys in the hobby. That's why RAM outsold JetCat 10:1 back in those days.

The model turbine market cannot sustain a large scale bailout. What do you think the profit margin is for JetCat, JetCat USA, and the the final retailer on a P-120 that can be bought at discounted retail for as low as 2495.00 on some package deals?

My (3) P-120's and old P-80 now with Inconel combustor and 4.0 ECU are dream machines, but not until going thru several less than desirable iterations.

Wonder where the Nasdaq would be today, if we all hadn't sold off. Remember, it is a zero-sum game. We could all still be multi-millionaires, maybe...........

Tom

P.S.----Please accept this post as an observation of human behavior, not an attempt to lay blame.