I would tend to agree. If Tower does indeed work its way into a monopoly on the DLE's, and prices rise, the engines won't be quite as popular as they are now. If they decide to make a DLE within dollars of a DA, I would definitely go with the DA. Right now, the DLE's are approximately 70% of the price of a similar DA. If it goes to 85-90%, I would definitely go with the DA. I would speculate OS and Futaba are less popular now than they used to be precisely because Hobbico positioned them as a premium brand and raised the prices. I know I bought a couple of Saito engines because I didn't feel the "value" of the OS 4-stroke pricing...

Nope, way off there junior. The original question was "Is the price fixed every where but Tower? "

After working on about all brands of 4 stroke engines for other people & mine...I got to say Saito isthe best for the $$. Real good running an easy to maintain. Certain YS models are very powerfull, but you got to learn more in depth facts about them.

If I buy from big Hobby sales...it will be from Hanger 9. I have got very good service & they have more of the items you may need for gas airplanes. Good ARF,s brands are in there line up. Also they have some darn good engines with exhaust systems for them. All in all quite a variety. Several of my friends have ARF planes they bought too from Hanger 9. They all flew real good.

They once included a item I did not order...they said just keep it. I would have sent it back. I understand being honest.. They have been strait with me. Capt,n PS My favorite small shop is Valley V RC

I would like someone to explain to me how it will be a good thing for Hobbico to have exclusive distribution rights of DLE engines in the USA? Don't suggest that Hobbico's warranty service is wonderful, I have heard too many accounts of how someone got totally shafted when they sent an item in for warranty repair.

If you want to see excellent service with DLE engines, look no further than Valley View RC. Jody is on here all the time. The man has passion for this hobby, it's not all about making a buck with him. He actually cares about his customers!

Do you guys want to see that kind of customer service vanish?

If Hobbico ends up being the only way to get a DLE engine, I'll use another brand!

I can only say, that while I do purchase from tower occasionally. I always make the effort to buy locally. Usually, my local hobby shop matches Towers prices on items like kits, engines, radios, etc. Hardware is more expensive, but thats OK. I want them around for when I need an item right NOW. My point is I support my local hobby shop whenever possible, I like having them around. That means even paying a bit more from time-to-time for some items. I am OK as long as they are reasonably priced. I will, however, go to the Toledo weak signals R/C expo and purchase many of the items that I need for the season there, there are some great prices at the shows, and no shipping.......

Just my $0.02

Dave

I just received my new DLE 30 from Tower and took advantage of the $60 discount as a member of the Tower Club. I purchase big ticket items from them any time I can get a substantial discount. I had a complaint of two about some of the items I purchased from them and they either replaced them or gave me credit. I also support my LHS and also buy from internet hobby dealers. Might as well take advantage of any opportunity to save a few bucks. Usually most of those savings goes to buy other hobby items anyway.

I just got an email from Hobbyking and they have the DLE55 back in stock at $269.99.

Mitchell

Sounds like a good deal. Lots of good deals out there. Servo City recently offered the Futaba Faast 10C transmitter for $369.95 as an example of doing your internet homework looking for good deals. My only problem with buying from overseas vendors is warranty work.

Servocity is not an overseas company. it is located in Kansas.

L.

Really ? Did they say it`s a genuine DLE55 ?

Well, mine looks and runs like an genuine DLE. If it's not, it's a good enough copy of a copy for me to like it. It runs nice enough it wouldn't matter if it's a copy.

For that matter, how does one tell the difference between a copy and a genuine dle? I've heard something about lazer engraving.

Cherokee, I know Servo City is in the U.S., I purchased my 10C from them.

Nice looking airplanes http://www.sdshobby.net/Wholesale-rc...lane-arf_c2236

I don't know guys.... prices just seem inflated for everything, and engines more than most. When you can buy a new quality chainsaw for a couple of hundred bucks, it just seems insane to be paying 500 dollars or more for a model airplane engine. Yes, I know all about "supply and demand" and mass production, etc. But it sure is irritating that any thing for a boat, airplane, hot rod, modeling purchases, etc. are so highly priced. Any full size boat owner knows, figure what an item you want to buy is worth, and double it and you might be close to the actual purchase price. In modeling, a pack of plastic servo arms... 10 bucks!!?? Come on...

A person would not be able to have an "engine sales only" business and be able to survive with what I would consider "fair" pricing, but you won't catch me paying 300 dollars and up for an airplane engine. That's why I use only engines I have converted from leaf blowers, chain saws, etc. Maybe I don't get the latest-greatest power to weight available, but I get most of my engines for less than 50 bucks. I have 12 airplanes flying... NO WAY that I could do/enjoy that if I were paying the going rate for the gasoline engines on them. They all fly great, are reliable, etc. My Echo 24cc engines turn a 16 x 8 prop at over 9000 rpms and weigh just over 2 lbs. Good enough for me.

The DLE 20 really caught my eye when it came out, and buying one for around 200 bucks is conceiveable for me. When the price is pushing 300 with shipping, I say "No Way!"

Just my thoughts... But then I get "sticker shock" just walking through the grocery store these days.

AV8TOR

DA is still loving life, along with 3w and a few others, because they can sell to the U.S. UAV market without having foreign trade issues. They also still have higher quality standards than ANY Chinese engine manufacturer. You pay a higher price because the product is made to higher standards using American labor. The German products are also of higher quality, with both the American and German engines having established extremely long life cycles with minimal catastropic failue issues.

The Chinese manufacturers actually have very little impact on the better engine manufacturers because the hobby gas engine market is very small. They are but a small percentage of the gas engine market and losing them all to the east would have but a small impact on the bottom line. But the small gas engine flyer doesn't know this because they are frequently ignorant of the size of their current area of focus.

Just remember who the people were that got you to where you wanted to go. The ones that developed the products that you use and depend on. The ones that WERE there to answer your "how to" questions. Then remember why they are no longer around once they're gone. YOU drove them out of the business looking for that couple dollars you "saved" today. You didn't have any thoughts about tomorrow so when it arrives don't whine or complain.

I've been around this hobby a long time. With a lot of you probably twice or more longer than you've been breathing and I've watched Tower repeatedly drive people out of business, including their own distributors, by underselling them in order to monopolize the market. The pricing went up every time after the competition was gone. At least Horizon refuses to undersell their dealers. Tower/Hobbico has no such restraints. They'll cut anyone's thoat.

The problem with buying from any overseas manufacturer is with the export of dollars. Unfortunately just about every American manufacturer found out it's more profitable to use foreign labor and components to escape the laws governing labor and the environment in America. So consumers in their never ending greed just sat back and let the jobs of their friends and neighbors drift overseas because they were too lazy to get involved with politics at home. Want to know why you may not have a job or the one you have pays so bad? You did it to yourself.

Next time you folks look at a shipping invoice from Hobby King or similar, look at the product values noted on the customs documents. You think American manufacturers are gouging you? When the value of a servo on a Hobby King customs invoice is listed at only $0.18 (that's 18 cents for those numerically challenged) you know you're getting had.

Yes, American dealers make some money on a sale to you. They have to if they want to eat and have a place to live, and to provide that warranty service that all of you insist on having. You do the same when you accept a paycheck. You work to have enough to pay the bils and, hopefully, put some away for a rainy day. That payment of the bills and setting aside a little is called "overhead and profit". Seems it's ok for you to do it but it's not ok for the person you expect to take care of you to do the same.

Yes, the cost of everything appears to be going up. The operative word in that sentence was "appears". In reality the cost of those products is the same or less than they used to be. The problem is the value of our dollar. It has and is going down so manufacturers expect to receive value equal to the sale of their products and increase the number of dollars needed to buy them to offest the decline in dollar value. Gas is not more expensive, our dollar simply isn't worth anything. That's what happens when you go from a production economy to a consumer economy. You import and buy more than you make so you export dollars instead of importing currency. We have one of the weakest currencies in the world, and a large part of the reason is the American consumer. The other part of the reason is the American voter. They didn't bother to learn about anything, didn't vote, and now are paying the piper.

You learn this is a cold, hard fact if and when you ever travel overseas and try to buy something. Ever wonder why it takes more dollars to buy a Euro or Dinar? Wasn't all that long ago it took more Euros and Dinars to buy a dollar. Now it takes 1.5 dollars for a Euro, and up to 3.7 dollars to buy certain Dinar. Even the Australian and Canadian dollars have reached parity with the American dollar, which means none of the three is worth more than about $0.28 on the world market.

I don't know if some of you are simply stupid or just in denial, but the more American businesses you force to close the more you're going to pay later. Nobody works for free.

Servo City is not foreign to the USA

They are more into servo brands (Hitec - Futaba) we are familiar with to use them in model robot situations.

http://www.servocity.com/

HI
ALL this talk about ENGINE SERVICE-do we really need engine service at all ?? especially if the engines are built and designed well from the get go -TO LAST - we do need to aquire replacement parts i would think most people in the hobby service there own engines and replace what is needed when required (such as rings and bearings- )- I WILL BUY AT THE BEST POSSIBLE PRICE -AND SERVICE ALL MY OWN ENGINES ,-that keeps my operating cost down to a minimum i assume that many do the same or aim i off base on this thought ,in this hobby i have a need to be hands on -in as many aspects of keeping my fleet flying as is possible -and doing it all on my own ( for 20 years ) SO I KNOW IT IS DONE CORRECTLY WITH NO FUSS am i alone here ? BEST REGARDS TONY

Do not know how much truth there is to this, I just copied and pasted it from a Email I received. ????

The following are 19 facts about the De-industrialization of America that will blow your mind...

#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001... About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

#2 Dell Inc., one of America’s largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured INSIDE the United States? Zero.

#5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

#6 As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.

#8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

#9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.

#10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul, Minnesota. Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing strategy.

#11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.

#12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.

#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th..

#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.

#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States.

#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.

#19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?

How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?

How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?

How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

The deindustrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one. Can anyone explain how a de-industrialized America has any kind of viable economic future?

America is in deep, deep trouble folks. It is time to wake up.

Curious what the cost is for a DLE 55 from tower shipped to your front door with all the wonderful super savings??

I called Valley View Thursday afternoon and ordered a motor from the person that was actually going to put it in the mail. We actually chatted a bit about misc. personal stuff. From Washington to Ohio in 2 days using usps. I dont anticipate having any problems with this motor, but the fact i can call someone that actually sells, uses, and services the motor is worth something to me. I didn't even look at Tower.

WOW!

What happened to the RCU rule; "Please resist the urge to curse, flame, degrade, insult or embarrass someone in your post"

RCU moderation asleep?

A pasted statment......below

<div style="border-bottom: medium none; text-align: left; border-left: medium none; background-color: transparent; color: #000000; overflow: hidden; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; text-decoration: none">Yes, the cost of everything appears to be going up. The operative word in that sentence was "appears". In reality the cost of those products is the same or less than they used to be. The problem is the value of our dollar. It has and is going down so manufacturers expect to receive value equal to the sale of their products and increase the number of dollars needed to buy them to offest the decline in dollar value. Gas is not more expensive, our dollar simply isn't worth anything. That's what happens when you go from a production economy to a consumer economy. You import and buy more than you make so you export dollars instead of importing currency. We have one of the weakest currencies in the world, and a large part of the reason is the American consumer. The other part of the reason is the American voter. They didn't bother to learn about anything, didn't vote, and now are paying the piper

I agree with most everthing you said....except ...We as American voters did the best we can. Not much of a choise on who to vote for. It always comes down too the 2 biggest parties. Once they get in contol it is there show....and what they (Our fearless leaders) do pretty much what they want. So it is not just our the voters fault....more like the Goverments falut. The big $$$ boys control all the rest of us...its been that way too long. ..........a voter.
</div>

I didn't see anywhere it was noted that truth fit any of the unallowable categories. That does seem to be a problem these days. People are unwilling to face and acept the truth in order to avoid personal responsibility. Denial and blaming someone else is much easier and assuages those tiny pangs of guilt some may still experience.

Tired Old Grumpy Man, what is up with all the crabby remarks from you lately.
your last post here,
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_60...m.htm#10204965

was certainly uncalled for and is your opinion.
you literally dominate the Gas forum and it's really neat how you logon and then right back off after you make a post (seems like a lot of work though).........but i have to say you really made an @## out of yourself by blasting us in the Radio topic that really didn't even concern you.

you don't believe in using new technology as they obviously didn't have it in your day, but did they teach manners back in your day that are somehow different today?

Tower hobbies discontinued the DLE 30cc engine.