marksmodels

Doug
Carl was great and interesting. His factory in chacago was a shock to me when I first saw it when I was 20. Unlike the west coast where things were clean the chicago factory was an old warehouse cold, dark and with giant steel doors that had multiple lock it was very strange. Inside Carl would show you how things were make and share most of his procedures. This was also true of Sid Axelrod of Top Flite the inventer of monocote. When again at 20 Sid showed me how they made propelers I was overwhelmed, how did he come up with this.
These guys were great and its why I wanted to get into the business.
As time went on the industry changed and got large enough that there was money to be made. This was when guys like Paul Bender, who worked for hobby people in 1967ish Hobby and then went on to start hobby shack, and Bruce Holecheck who statred tower hobbies started changing the face of the hobby.
Each of these places both started manufacturing and so if any product was selling well, and they would know because they were our bigest customers, they would eventuly knock it off. One simple Example the dynaflight exhaust diverter. Seems harmless. Sales were running at about a 1000 per week for several years, but when your bigest customer, hobbico sees these sales it is only a matter of time before they have one. So if you are in the hobby bus you better control the retail end or your size will be caped.
Mark