Balsinator

Thanks for all the replies. I should mention that I buy a lot of models from Nitro P these days. In fact I own the dreaded 69" Yak we have all heard about. So I am not in a position to throw rocks here. I didn't post this thread to discuss the price differences of Chinese made ARF's which most likely come from the same factories or the morality of knock offs. I don't know anything about manufacturing etc. It just seems to me it shouldn't be that difficult to set up a production line that could produce modestly priced ARF's here in the US.








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SoCalSal

My Feedback: (16)

Well said

SoCalSal

My Feedback: (16)

"No Brainer" is the perfect description for you

tlandon

My Feedback: (15)

Typical RCU response. Thanks, man.

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

I'll pay more for higher quality, but not a different build location.

opjose

I'd pay 10%-20% more for a U.S. made plane, which would be offset by lower shipping costs I would hope....

I'd pay an additional 10-20% for high quality components, but even with U.S. companies, "High Quality" components is subject to interpretation, so I would not give any claims of such much creedence unless I see some proof... a good review with pictures, etc.

That's about it though...

SoCalSal

My Feedback: (16)

Sorry if you took offense to my post. All of us want to save money and get the best value for our dollar.and more so in todays world. But if you really think about it, how much cheaper is the import stuff??? Is it just because they work for less?? I know that is not true. The true cost savings is in the fact that off-shore producers use cheaper components as well as cheap labor. Here is a simple thing you see everyday. Look at the cardboard that the Chinese products come shipped in. It is so inferior to anything made here in the states that for the most part it is falling apart before it gets to its destination. I know this because I work in a transportation industryy and I see it every single day. Another thing...tools.just try a set of those Chinese tools you see at the local Harbor Fright tool store.. the will self destruct in your hands as you work on your car. But they are cheap!!!!!! as you say a "No Brainer" as far as cost goes. I could go on and on like this about different import products that are a "No Brainer" as far as cost goes. But you get what you pay for. I have friends in this hobby that have those cheap servos and battery packs in the planes. Most work well at first but with out exception they all have had premature failures due to the cheap componets that they are constructed of to get to the cheaper selling price. So if you really think that cheaper is better then it is a "No Brainer " for you and others who think along those lines.
Just pray that your job whatever it may be is not sent off-shore because someone out there can cut the price on your job. Who gives a hoot if they don't do as good a job as you or the quailty is less than what you can produce?. It would be a "No Brainer" for those who think along your lines to buy the cheaper stuff from your little buddies off-shore. So my friend......look very close at those cheap batteries you have in your plane....pray that what is on the inside is as good as you think and please don't try to blame any failurs or crashes on anything else but the cheaper stuff you have in your planes.

Buyer Beware

Balsinator

I have already learned my lesson with cheap lipos. Now to be fair I am guessing the "good quality" ones are probably made in China also. A good point was made about the quality of an american made model. MADE IN AMERICA doesn't guarantee against the product being a piece of crap. However assuming the quality is good, I would feel better giving the extra money to an American company that takes pride in their product. Does anyone know what the profit margin is on the imports. Say for the name brands and even for the discount importers. And not to leave "R&D" out does anyone know exactly what the develpement cost of a model airplane is.

ChuckW

My LHS accidentally left out a GP sales flyer in the box of an ARF I recently just bought. This flyer was intended for the hobby shop, not the consumer. In this case, the LHS made around $35 on the plane if I recall. Not really all that much. They have to sell a lwhole ot of them to make a decent income.

As for the manufacturers it really depends. One factor is the number of pieces that get sold. The more you sell, the quicker you recoup your expenses and the mor emoney you ultimately make. If you don't sell many, you might no make anything at all or even lose money.

While I have not worked in the hobby industry I have been involved with light manufacturing. I can tell you that developing a product from nothing and seeing it all the way through to market is very expensive. Every person who puts their time into a project has a salary, benefits, wokers comp and so on. Then there is liability coverage, packaging design, manufacturing costs, marketing, warehousing, distribution, support costs, warranty costs and on and on.

After all of that, it could still be a flop and you end up in the hole. Or it could be copied by an unethical copy-cat manufacturer someplace and sold for much less since they don't have your expenses. It is a risky venture to say the least.

Can money be made? You bet. It is not however this automatic cash generating thing that some people sometimes seem to think it is.

I do not think any of the reputable companies like Great Planes, Hangar-9, QQ, Sig, World Models are sticking it to consumers. I think, like most manufacturers, they strive to make sure they can make a profit for themselves and everyone in their distribution network and still deliver it at a price the consumer is willing to pay.

They all have a right to be profitable. No profit means no more business. Most of us work for a business of some sort so I see profit as a good thing.

SoCalSal

My Feedback: (16)

Just remember folks. Profit is not a bad word. How many of you out there ask a car dealer to sell their cars to you at their cost??? had how many of you ask the local grocery store to sell you milk and bread at their cost???? Think about it.

NorfolkSouthern

I have a Great Planes Ultimate that I won't be able to start this year due to a move. However, I may pay a professional builder to do the project for me, if I can find one close enough who is reputable. There was one person I remember who framed up a Dynaflite Decathlon, who had someone else cover it for him. The plane looked stellar with a very high quality of construction, much better than most ARFs I've seen. In that sense, there is a market out there.

NorfolkSouthern

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

Actually, a common practice among new car buyers is to find out the dealer cost and negotiate up from there!

Sure, everyone has to make a profit on what they're selling, otherwise they wouldn't waste their time selling it. That's why it's best to buy from sellers fairly high up on the food chain. The closer you get from buying direct from the manufacturer, the fewer people have to make a buck on your item to stay in business. Large stores that do high volume internet sales can afford to make a smaller percentage than a LHS with less volume.

ChuckW

Exactly. No profit means no jobs, no benefits, no house, no car, no cool RC stuff, no food, nothing. It doesn't just affect each of us directly through our own jobs either. Have a 401K, IRA or other investments? For that investment to grow and not shrink into nothingness relies on the companies whos stock you own hopefully making a profit. Yep, I want my employer to make a profit and I want the same for every other legitimate busness out there including Hobbico, Horizon and others. If a company is publicly traded and I happen to own a piece of it, I make money. Even if it isn't, a profitable company can pay employees who pay taxes and buy products from companies that I might have a stake in. It benefits all of us in the end.

Sandmann_AU

I think the days where every country produced their own goods and sold to their own population are very much over, and have been for a while. There's a few countries like the US, UK, Australia, France, Germany etc that have high standards of living, high wages, and the majority of the world's wealth - and it's these countries that demand jobs where they're paid well, have good conditions, side benefits like medical, company cars, cell phones, pensions etc which ALL add to the retail price of the product... however the larger part of the world is poor or "developing" and they're prepared to fore go the luxuries we treat as basic requirements.

Today there's only three ways that a company in a wealthy western nation can compete in an economically sustainable manner with the poorer nations in a small market like RC goods - if the cost of shipping is so extravagant that it's cheaper to manufacture at home, if the local product is so far superior to make the extra expense worth while for the AVERAGE consumer (in our market the competitors who buy high end models are the extreme, not the average), or if the local company appeals to a "niche" clientele and convinces them (rightly or wrongly) that the extra expense of the "boutique" brand is justified (Harley Davidson Motorcycles are the perfect example of this). It's always the way however that boutique brands and makers of specialty items are the first to suffer in a financial crisis, along with other industries that rely on "discretionary spending" such as tourism. As an illustration, the average American owns 1.5-2 cars, whereas Americans who own serious radio controlled toys are probably less than 1 in 500, so we're far from a large market.

The way the economy and oil production are looking in the foreseeable future may change things - as oil becomes scarcer shipping gets more expensive which adds to the retail price, and as the US dollar falls and global markets struggle, locally produced products become more attractive. However until and unless things change significantly the only way local companies are likely to make sustainable money from our hobby is as retailers or by having overseas manufacturing facilities (eg: Great Planes). Even that's suffering with the advent of the internet, Ebay etc, which all offer cheap overseas communication and credit cards which offer easy international purchases. The very luxuries that we've fought so hard for are the things that have created the situation we're now in.

Matt

JS615

I think you pretty much summed it up,,,,,,,, I for one would like to see a large rc plane manufacture open up here in the United States, but thats just not going to happen any time soon, if ever,,, with all the government regs, taxes, and trying to compete against lower labor costs, it would be impossible,,,, and then if the plant became union organized it would be finished,, out of business!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A1

My Feedback: (2)

I'm always willing to pay any hard working kid .30 cents/hour to build me an ARF. No matter which country they come from.

PacificNWSkyPilot

My Feedback: (19)

I disagree with the oil scenario there. Oil is a commodity, and OPEC strives to make it seem precious. Much like the diamond companies strive to keep diamonds classified as "rare" and precious. In fact, they sit on a mountain of diamonds at all times, and control the supply flow. JUST LIKE OPEC. And when we all parked our cars and Hummers, they couldn't sell their oil. The market price per barrel dropped in spite of their plans, and gas here last week was $1.34 a gallon. This week it's $1.59 a gallon, they're going to try to raise the prices again.
Everything that is going on now....was expected by anybody who was watching carefully. This crisis we are all swimming through is the onslaught of corrections to a market that was so overdue for them it couldn't stand another minute. That's also the reason I say that the auto makers should not be bailed out. If they really are going to survive they are going to have to pay less for their labor. And if most of the present workers are lost during that transition, then I feel bad for them but we all knew it was coming. I come from Maine, where almost every single production job was lost in this Bush-generated nightmare. Maine will survive, and so will the others in the end. The whole country survived it last time in 1928. Most folks did, anyway.

And in the end we potentially COULD compete at some level building ARFs. Because China is having the same problems, people are demanding more and more as their economy becomes a massive giant like ours. This upheaval is not just the USA crashing in the market, this is the WHOLE world going through growing and shrinking pains and the economic pains that come with that. This is like water seeking its own level everywhere.

That's my two cents. I could've gotten a nickel for it last year.

Jim

Sandmann_AU

I don't know about opec needing to make it seem precious - it's a finite resource that we've been using up madly for about 100 years. If you don't think it's coming to an end have a look at how many oil wells there aren't these days in texas - no reason to think the middle eastern wells are fairing any better. Add to that the fact that we've built our entire society around oil production... it's not just driving our cars, it's heating homes, running ships and aircraft, and even the plastics in our propellers, monokote, and the keyboard I'm typing on are petroleum based. Then factor in the rapid expansion of countries like India and China and their thirst for oil and you have a huge demand for a product that's becoming more and more limited in supply. Yes there's still new reserves being found but they're getting smaller and smaller, and harder to get with people having to drill in places like Alaska or deep in the ocean. Lower supply, increasing cost of supply, and higher demand all couple to make it a precious resource without anyone trying all that hard.

While I agree with you about pay levels etc needing to be lower, it's incredibly difficult to do in a unionised country, and it becomes a bit of a vicious circle. The argument against it will be that lowering wages to support the auto industry makes it impossible for workers to maintain their standard of living (which is what got us into this position in the first place really). If it does happen the lower wages mean the cars aren't sold as frequently which provides less profit for the auto industry so they have to lower their prices so the workers can buy the cars. Other industries will have to follow suit so their own products/services can be afforded. You end up with less money moving around the economy, but unless the same thing happens in other countries (which it won't, at least not to the same degree as their own crises aren't as great) so the recession ends up getting worse, not better.

Actually, vast swathes of the country didn't survive it, both in terms of lives lost and businesses going bust.

I never intended to imply that this was solely an American problem - far from it. The effects are magnified and far more visible in the US due to it being such a wealthy country in its own right, and the tremors in the US economy have aftershocks all over the world but that's not to say that the rest of us are having any better a time either.

China's still in a very sensitive position, financially speaking. It's been a mover and shaker in recent years but most of that's been a manufacturing base - it doesn't have the huge reserves of wealth that the US does and it relies on other countries buying their goods (which they suddenly aren't). While we see images of large modern cities with roads clogged with new cars and shops filled with the trappings of wealth that probably only represents 10% of the population - the majority of the country still lives in a village economy and the country has enormous degrees of poverty once you get out of the big cities (and even within them too).

The Bank of England has just lowered the official interest rate to 1.5%, the lowest rate in 300 years. Australia's recent boom times are based primarily on selling coal and steel to places like China at a premium price, so our "cash cow" has suddenly disappeared as the world stops buying China's cheap products.

Either way, this was supposed to be about the prices of ARFs so I'd better get back in topic. All the above comes down to this, unless and until the wealth of the US reduces to a similar level to other comparable nations, along with the necessary reductions in manufacturing costs eg: pay scales and use of technology (eg: the sweat shops in China don't use robots to assemble their ARFs) American built ARFs must remain more expensive than foreign ones leading us back to the need to create a significantly better ARF for the price, or to convince a (rapidly diminishing) market with expendable wealth to purchase boutique items at a higher price.

Matt

Balsinator

Wow, It is hard not to jump into this discussion. Ok I just deleted about three paragraphs on the economy. I have never liked the idea of a world economy or the concept that growth is a good thing and necessary to a good economy. I would love to see China go back to what they were and manufacturing to come back strong here. That is why I posed this question in the first place. I think huge changes are on their way and anything is possible once the dust settles from this slow motion train wreck that we are all watching.
There is one thing I have been wondering about. Why are Kits so damn expensive. Most of them are nothing but a box of cut balsawood with no hardware and they are almost as expensive as an equivalent ARF.

NorfolkSouthern

Balsinator: A lot of that has to do with supply and demand. With the ARFs increasingly on backorder due to limited supply, more people are considering kits. This drives up demand, and the cost of materials increase along with the overhead. The company can raise its price to cover its expenses and make a profit, and people will still buy the kit due to its availability. Yes, the kit will ultimately cost more to build, but that's still better than waiting for an ARF that might not show up again on the market.

NorfolkSouthern

Sandmann_AU

Kits are also often more complex - the Great Planes Super Skybolt's a good example where the kit builds 3-4lb heavier than the ARF. They need manuals, photos, and extra R&D so they can be built at home by the average schmuck with simple hand tools rather than training and specialised jigs etc. Plus there's also the fact that very few companies make kits anymore, making them a bit of a boutique item in themselves.

It does go to show that labor is an important part of the costs - generally the asian companies can afford the cheap labor to build the ARFs, but kits still tend to be america (eg: Balsa USA) where laser cutters take the place of cheap labor. In the US one guy who gets paid a good salary can drive a machine that can turn out large numbers of kits quickly whereas in asia many people getting paid peanuts can build the planes on jigs with hot glue guns for the same price.

Matt

PacificNWSkyPilot

My Feedback: (19)

Matt,

The whole country DID survive it. Businesses are not people. People worked together to survive it. They've forgotten how to do that now, so maybe it needs to happen again. And an overgrown sandstorm we called the dust bowl, that ended as well and people moved right back onto the land.

I agree with your ARF paragraph to some extent. And it goes along with another thing you said. Not only WILL it be incredibly difficult to drop wages in a unionized society, it already IS. This bailout they are asking for, it's wrong, and it simply prolongs the inevitable. It throws good money after bad. This world economy is dropping down HARD andleveling out whether we like it or not, whether people planned for its possibility or not. It's a self-correction. The first depression was a self-correction. In the end, we'll all be closer to each other in terms of money and values than you think. Our labor force will be taking less just to have a job, and the present third-world nations will be paying more for labor and other things. In the end, we should be close enough that we should be able to compete in the ARF building market. I doubt that we actually WILL, because I think by then that we're going to have more important things on our minds (that's right, there may come a day when planes are NOT the most important thing!) than buying these.

As for oil, there far more oil out there than you know. I lose my wife for two weeks every month while she works near the Arctic circle at oil camps, little towns in the frozen tundra of the far north that are built around new oil-drilling, oil-producing fields. She works in the implementation and start-up and staff training of waste-water facilities and water facilities. These camps are everywhere, and dozens more are on the drawing boards of my wife's company alone.. And every time the oil prices go back up, more are going to be started up. Oil is everywhere, my friend, and don't let them tell you otherwise. And a whole lot is being done and is on the planning boards. OPEC has had it's best run to date, but that's about to change. This is kind of like when everybody was convinced of what Hitler was saying and they were thinking he couldn't be stopped. OPEC's Blitzkrieg is about to be halted. Many nations are working together to find oil, and they have found it in many, many places. Don't think that Russia is just sitting there doing nothing, either.

And none of this is off-topic. In the end, unions are going to be set aside. Standards of living are going to be superceded by the struggle for staying at a workable income level to not lose homes, for the time being at least. In the end we very well could be able to compete in building ARFs, but it's what comes in between that is the hardest part. Right now, while some of us still have some money, we're distracting ourselves from the world woes by buying our ARFs and flying. I'm not foolish enough to think that my level of pay is going to stay the same if my company is going to make it through this self-correction. I'm hoping it will happen in stages instead of a full-blown depression, like 1928. And it is already happening world-wide, and it will happen everywhere. Some countries go up at times, some go down at times, but this is already world-wide. I agree that China isn't selling the goods they were hoping to right now, maybe because they reached saturation while they were planning on more growth, but the reason doesn't matter. They're feeling it too. In fact, I agree with every word of that paragraph.

So, ARFs are cheaper from overseas. And most of them are quite good. I'd still buy an American-made ARF if I liked it and if I felt that the quality was there. 30 percent more? Sure. I've seen the overseas ARFs vary that much. Marketing is everything. Support just as much and perhaps more so. Wild Hare, for instance. Consistent high marks for their service. I bought a couple, they are really nice, the best I had seen to date. I recently bought a couple of SIG ARFs, and theirs are just as nice.

I just hope that we can maintain enough of an economy here in the states so that I can continue to go out and fly them.

Jim

Balsinator

Balsa USA huh, I had assumed all the kits were coming from the same place. I will check it out. If this is the case then my problem may be solved. I have wanted to build kits but always thought that in the end I would be paying more money for the same piece of ARF crap that I was getting in a plain white box. You know now that I think about it I bought an old SV2 model someone had for sale at the hobby shop. It was built from a kit and it is incredible. Tight as a drum and solid as a rock. Anyone knows of any other american manufacturers please post that info so I can check them out.

ChuckW

Great Planes and Sig kits are manufactured in the US. Of course the balsa comes from South America.

Sandmann_AU

No guarantees that Balsa USA actually make their kits in the US, but the name (and the prices) at least imply that they do. RCU has a great sticky thread [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_8132568/tm.htm]here[/link] that lists most of the remaining kit makers - some of them only do one or two models, others have a bigger range. The other way you could be sure it was a locally made kit is to buy the plans of a plane you like and have a local kit cutting company do it for you. Then you'd have the double pleasure of a locally made kit and a fairly unique plane that you won't see another four of at the flying field. Another option is Ebay; there's always a bunch of "new old stock" from kit companies that have gone bust years ago like Royal being sold there, however there's the caveat that the kit will be 10-20 years old, there's no support for them anymore, and they sell at a premium price due to collectors.

I've built two kits so far - my first plane was a GP Perfect Trainer 40, and my most recent's a GP Super Skybolt. The trainer got crashed into a swamp and left unfound for five weeks and survived with only minimal damage to the leading edge of one wing, and the Skybolt nosedived at 50mph and only needed a new firewall, tank floor, cowl and a little sheeting round the nose. If I'd had the same collisions with ARFs I'm sure I would have shattered every it of balsa (as I've done to about 3 ARFs so far), so yes I do prefer kits despite the extra cost and time required.

Matt