My experience with Dave Patrick Models? OUTSTANDING

I was considering a Dave Patrick Models Ultimate and then read the threads here on RCU. Holy cow you guys scared the crap out of me with all the slamming you were doing about the customer service!

I sent an email two weeks ago inquiring about the availability of the DPM Ultimate in Purple. I received an email in a couple of days from Sandy that said "I will know in a couple of days after I fill the Back Orders". I didn't hear back from her. A few days later I emailed again and asked about the availability. I was emailed the following day with a reply stating that they were available. I emailed back and said that I would call the following day to place and order.

Then I read the thread about customer service from DPM. (Uh-Oh, did I make a mistake?) The following day I tried to call and only got the answering machine. I tried three more times that day and also the following day and only got the answering machine. I was starting to think you guys were right.

The next day (Friday) I called one minute after they opened. Sandy answered the phone and was extremely polite, professional and courteous. (Hmmm.............so far so good) I asked if the Purple Ultimates where in stock and was told yes. I place the order, Friday Morning March 19th.

Yesterday I emailed and asked if there was a tracking number available. I was emailed the following day, (today) and given tracking numbers.

Today, Wednesday March 24th, just 6 days later, I received my Ultimate. All I can say is WOW. Friggin' WOW!!! The quality is outstanding. And the customer service was great as well. If there was a problem in the past with customer service, I can tell you now there isn't. I would highly recommend purchasing any product from DPM. And if you are considering a DPM product but have changed your mind because of what you have read here on RCU (like I almost did) Don't. It may very well be that they heard the complaints and got it together.

These pictures do not do the plane justice. The quality is outstanding and I have been in this hobby for 27 years. Even if I would have had a bad experience like some of you have had, the quality of this airplane is so good, you would forget about any trouble or wait you had once you opened the box!

Wm. Scott Allison
Louisville, Kentucky

Glad to hear of your experience with Dave Patrick....I can't say enough good things about the company...My son ordered an ultimate...arrived in 5 days...I ordered an edge...arrived in 2 days...The airframes are the best...and the manuals are impressive!!!! No one does a better job at putting out a product than the Dave Patrick Company....Great Job Dave and Sandy...

I agree. Absolutely top shelf.

Thanks to Dave and Sandy.

My D.P. 330L is the best plane I've ever owned. And I've never had any problems with customer service. A month ago I called Sand to buy spare wing bolts for it and she sent them no charge in 3 days. They fly as good as they look!

Greetings
I ordered a DP Extra canopy online with a CC and it got here 10 days later, no harm no foul.
When I called to verify order status (9:00am Pacfic time) Sandy answered the phone and was as nice as pie...told me the day it shipped and when to expect it.
Couldn't ask for more than that.

I'd do business with the Patricks anytime.

I ordered a blue one today myself... the only thing that bothers me is that I included a note to subsitute a yellow if the blue are out of stock. I like the blue one a lot and hope they have one left!

Good flying,
Bob Scott

Bob,

If they don't have a Blue one (Purple) or you want a Yellow one, I know for a fact the Quantum models has the yellow ones. They are just down the road from me and I was there last week looking for blue. He had two yellow ones at that time.

Scott

Scott,

Thanks for the heads up. I've dealt with Quantum in the past and wouldn't hesitate to do business with them again.

Good flying,
Bob Scott

I have a DP Edge 540 and it is the best flying plane I have ever had. When I was building it I was missing a couple small bolts for the wheel pants. I sent DPM an e mail. I received a reply within a day or so and had a whole entire hardware bag sent to me free of charge, which I received in less than a week! I also had several questions about setting this plane up and engine selection. DP personally answered several of my e mails in a timely manner with sound advice. Customer service doesn't get any better than that.

i have loved his planes & plan to pick up the Edge sometime here soon to install a zdz-40 unless i am swayed by some other type of bird. Sometimes Dave is slow on shipping but its a small show i suppose[&:]

Nice to read positive comments about DPM; been flying his designs for several years. Other planes by much bigger companies leave something to be desired in performance and follow up knowledge after the sale. No problems here, I just purchased a 330L through my LHS (didn't have to pay shipping) and Sandy even held a white one for me while the dealer app cleared. Bravo! JIM PS The wing bolts are the same size as the smaller DuBro black nylon hex-head bolts on mine

So far so good for my service, I have the 540 and could not ask for a better product. It gets compliments everytime it is out and I just purchased the Cermark Pitts basedon his design as well. I am currently looking at the new Cub for a scale project so looking to buy a third must say something.

Varmintmaster, looks very nice what engine you got in yours? I have had mine for about six months and love it. I started with a Moki 2.10 and just switched to a ZDZ 50. I like the gasser a lot better.

Bike, using an OS 1.60FX with an APC 17x6 to keep the weight down over a gasser. With a 16x8 and 30% heli it has no vertical limits but suffers slightly with the 17. Since it is only used for fun flying I am not too concerned with the power loss. No complaints either way, I had an FPE 2.4 and a 20x8 carbon for it but just wanted to try something different.

I always hear how people like a gas engine over a Moki 2.1. Other then fuel economy whats so great?

The difference in switching from a Moki 2.1 to 50cc gas is more power and NO oily mess on the airplane.

I've owned Moki, 1.8& 2.1 over the years and they are excellent engines, I have switched to gas though and like it alot better for the reasons above. ( and those are BIG reasons to me)and cheap fuel.

Having said that , there are also some negatives to gas as well, ie, vibration, weight, smell. Also u do have to go to 50cc to outpower the Moki 2.1- a 40-45cc gasser will not do. My ZDZ 40 would not even come close.

Mike

I have to agree with all of the above. The reason I originally put a Moki 2.10 on in the first place was light weight and lots of power. I had to mount it inverted because I could not bear to hack a big hole in the side of the cowl of such a nice looking scale plane.

Drawbacks to the Moki (from my experience):

-Hard to start by hand flooded easily (usually needed a starter wired to 24 volts to get it running)

-With the fuel tank on the CG it had to have a pump (tried them ALL with varying amounts of success but the engine was very touchy).

-Used $13.00 a gal fuel from the hobby shop

-Very messy glow gew (not a big deal on a 40 size plane but gets to be a hassle on a big plane).

-Need to mess with a glow igniter or on board glow driver.

-Would fly for about 10 min safely on 24 oz tank

-Believe it or not with an aluminum spinner and on board glow it was heavier than a ZDZ 50 with a carbon fiber spinner (had to rebalance the plane with the ZDZ 50 on it because it was tail heavy).

Moki pluses:

-Made great power on days when it decided to run well.

ZDZ 50 Drawbacks:

-Took some tinkering to get the needles set right with the cowl on (runs good now).

ZDZ 50 Pluses:

-Starts easy, flip the prop and fly.

-No glow igniter or on board glow to mess with.

-Mount the tank on the CG no pump needed.

-Even with inflated gas prices $2.00 a gal at the local pump and a gal of gas last a LOT longer than a gal of $13.00 glow.

-A lot more power, swings a bigger prop.

-With the 24 oz tank I can fly about 20 min with some left over (I need a smaller tank which means less weight in fuel).

-No glow gew (I don't have to spend that extra 10 min with the paper towels and windex cleaning the gew off the wings and bottom of the fuse).

Don't know anyone else's reasons for preferring gas over glow but these are mine.

With all the nay sayers, I must relay my latest customer service experience with Dave Patrick Models. I had a little mishap with my edge after seven months of flying my DP Edge and needed to purchase a cowl and a set of landing gear. I ordered both items on May 17, 2004 from the DPM website. I instant messaged Dave Patrick (on AOL IM) on May 19, 2004 and asked if he knew if the above items were in stock off hand. He responded back immediately that my order had already been shipped!! To my surprise when I got home from work today, I found my cowl and landing gear (very well packed I might add) sitting on my front porch. That was THREE DAYS from order to my door step customer service don't get any better than that.

Before this, about seven months ago was missing a couple small bolts for the wheel pants. I sent DPM an e-mail to see if he would send me the missing bolts. Less than a week later I received an entire parts bag with the missing bolts and duplicates of everything else I already had. Dave Patrick has also been very helpful with e-mail questions I had in reference to servo and engine selection. In my experience DPM provided customer service far better than any other company I have dealt with.

I don't doubt there have been some back orders and delays but I wouldn't be so fast to slam DPM as some have. Most if not all of these parts come from over seas.

My $.02 Kevin Lynch

The slamming of DPM was intended to get the word out so that the service would improve. It sounds like it has compared to other horror stories we've heard. Good job DPM, keep it coming.

When I met with Dave at the WRAM show and explained to him many of the stories and concerns here I thought we made a lot of progress. He had always turned a blind eye to all of the modelers here on the internet (why I cannot still understand). He agreed it would be a good idea to communicate with his customers here and I offered to setup a support forum for DPM at no charge. All he had to do was answer questions for support once or twice a week. All was a "go".

After numerous follow ups by me personally I never heard back from Dave. Not a word. I was really shocked because I felt our dinner meeting was very constructive. Dave is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. Very down to earth and I like him alot. I truly wanted to help him out and help the members here out by creating some better communication lines.

Somewhere between that dinner though and the time thereafter Dave had a change of heart. I think he feels that the internet can be ignored, it isn't a real entity which can make a difference or perhaps one that there is any way to have control of it. I think he feels people only use the internet to slam him or his company for the most part. I personally don't see it that way and I'm sure most of you don't. Nevertheless my sincere attempts to join company with customer for the greater good has failed. I don't believe I can sway Dave to take a genuine interest in the internet and the advantages it can offer. His ads have been canceled with RCU for a bit as he said he didn't feel it offered any return at all.

All I can say is if you whine in this forum or any other your comments will probably fall on deaf ears if you think DPM will respond or monitor them. He feels making great planes is all it takes to thrive and be successful. Who knows maybe he is right? He does have good product and has a passion for designing and the hobby. The question I guess he always will have to consider is how much happier would his customer base be if he attended to the online community more (or at all). How much larger would his business grow? Would it increase 30%, 50% or maybe more? I don't think he'll ever get the answers to that unless each of you can convince him that he needs to have a presence on RCU to communicate with his customers, support his products, promote them to raise awareness and so on.

Perhaps a deluge of phone calls or emails would be the only show of hands that might make an impression on him. I did my best but it wasn't good enough. Whatever happens I wish Dave well in his venture. He's a very nice man, makes good product and he has to live with his decisions. I won't hold it against him although I disagree. We can agree to disagree. I'll still consider him a friend and hope he does the same.

Nice post mark and I totally agree, Dave is very nice guy and the hobby world if far better with Dave Patrick models in sight. No question about that. It just seem that Dave is not really a web oriented person.

Serge

I have been waiting 6 months for a refund from them I call and remind Sanady once a month to no avail.They have kept my money WATCH OUT.

Refund on what? can you offer any details on your situation? I am about to buy a plane from DP and would like to hear more

If you look at their website They have removed the e-mail address at the bottom of the page.

I thing that tell everything....

My D.P ultimate is the best looking arf in my hangar..Its a shame that I can't say the same about D.P Customer service. .

DPM is a growing buisness. We can't expect them to answer a question everytime a modeler doesn't know which way to turn a screw. Luckly the instruction manuals for all of their models are honestly the best i've ever seen. Anyone should be able to assemble a dpm model with no trouble. And, when you do need the customer service, you can often talk to Dave Patrick, the man who designed the planes himself. You won't see that with many other companies. i thinks what everyone needs to do is wait, and dpm will grow as a company, offering easier and faster service.

mark