No war starting here, but I would like to make a point.

No one is actively promoting BME, nor is anyone paid to do so. Neither are there any sponsored high level pilots to go to all the contests in an effort to extoll the virtues of an engine after they win or place in a contest. With BME you also don't see 1/3 to full page ads in any magazines.

That said, one should by now be able to figure out how large sales volumes are made. Through advertising!! Advertising can be any form of media, such as magazines and contest sponsorships. It can also be by giving away engines to top flyers to have them actively promote them at contests at any level. In essence, increased sales volume comes from spending large amounts of money in the effort to make everyone believe you have the best simply because so many people use them, or so many people win contests with them. Even better if the contest winner gets to write articles for magazines. That's an extra kick as a side benefit. The engine does not have to be better than others, just used by high profile flyers that would have won the contests with a weedie conversion.

There are a lot of great engines available that are comparatively unused and unknown. Why, because they don't advertise. If I was to give a Herbrandson to 95% of the people flying a plane that could handle it, they would probably screw it up in a couple of flights. Worse, they likely would not accept it because they think it's only a racing engine. How wrong they are!! BME is in a similar position. They make superior engines at lighter weights. The weight is an area where they have been ahead of the pack for quite some time. The 110 was never an issue, but the knowledge level of the users was.

Zenoah is another manufacturer that greatly misunderstood until recently. Up until a year or so ago, or until the people that actually use them finally started talking about them, most thought they were heavy, gutless lumps that just happened to be inexpensive. Wrong again!! They just didn't care to go out and spend tens of thousands of dollars in advertising an already proven product. How misunderstood were they? A fair number of people that have bought them in the last year or so can't start them without an electric starter or converting them to electronic ignition. That's a lack of knowledge of the owners, not a defect in the engine. Those that read the directions and understand how to swing a prop can start them without any outside assist in only a few flips.

So how does BME make a lighter engine? If all the manufacturers knew they would be making them too. Are the fins a little smaller. Yep, but most engines have fins greatly oversized because they were designed to sit in a chainsaw and never move forward quickly through the air. Does the engine have a custom designed case? Yep, and so do 3W and DA. Should you baffle a twin cylinder BME in a cowled installation? Yep, but you should have been doing that with DA, 3W, and ZDZ. Why do you think a 3W cylinder turns pink when it gets too hot? Simply so 3W can tell when the user did not install and run the engine correctly.

So if you want to go with another manufacturer, great! Means nothing to me because I don't get a piece of anyone's pie. Personally I'm going to buy the best and lightest I can that provides the power I need and want. If that product turns out to be one that's not one of the market leaders it's no big deal. I've got enough time and experience with this hobby and it's engines that I understand what and why things work. If that knowledge gives me an edge in product shopping, so be it.

There's a lot going on in engine development that will be trickling down to this hobby in the next couple of years than most would be willing to believe. The manufacturers that will appear to be on the cutting edge two years from now won't have been doing anything new. In fact, they will have already been using the designs and technology for several years before the average modeler even knew it existed. You folks don't really think that the costs of engine R&D are supported by R/C, do you?

Ultimately, go where you want to go and buy what you want to buy. There's leaders and followers and most don't even know what group they fall into, or that they were led there.