Originally Posted by FresnoJay

I love the look and size of this bird. I am an SU-34 owner and its now 2 years old and in 1 piece still. But the prices of these birds is getting so high its actually pushing me towards composite kits. I know they have costs to cover and do get the business end of things. Just getting so much that if I do get one it wont be for a year or 2 when the price comes down or a big sale like black friday at H/L if thats where it shows up. Very sad .

Jason

I hear ya, I'm sure they make big profits off of these foam kits & arf's. Come on how much can foam cost?! I 2 have contemplated the move to composites but I just love the way these foamie birds fly with their light wing load. A composite of the same size plane/type would require a more expensive power system, heavier batt, n stronger retracts so I'm sure you'll be spending at the least twice as much.

This has got 2 be the best looking foam edf I've ever seen!!! I already ordered 2 cyclone power 2500kv 6s motors, 2 hobbywing platinum pro 100a esc's, & 4 new changesun 70mm 10 blade edf units (2 for spares), & rclander twin 70mm afterburn kit (rafale). Already have 5000mah & 4000mah 6s so once the plane is bought i can figuer out which will work best. Hopefully it aint pished back. Now can we just skip December n welcome January & the new year already!

N e body gonna run a different setup?

Isn't it just a simple marketing-related fact that if you overprice an option the market demands, you have done the obligatory but made sure it wont sell. They appearantly don't want you to buy the kit, they want you to pay for the rtf.

That's all very, very old news. They do it with cars, furniture, even houses in new projects work that way. So, my advice is; deal with it. You dont get the chair to change it by complaining, you get only a say when you organize buyers. And that involves some kind of risktaking...Do it better yourself.

The reason I say this, just in general, not at anyone particular; all threads seem to start out this same way. We are overly happy with the new arrival, complain the hell out of it in price and the stupid choices they made (in our opinion) about fans, motors and esc's and keep on complaining about all little details not being topstandard quality...for almost the first 35 pages...and then finaly the fun part begins.

Waist of time in my opinion. Decide for your own to buy or not. And maybe the veterans here can figure something out to utilize this powerfull medium to create some kind of certification. 'RCGroups Certified'...maybe, just maybe you get a say in production and choices in hardware in the end.

Just my 2c..

And to be completely clear...it is not ment to stop any good discussion or debate...;-)

Exactly why I ended my post the way I did. Nothing changes in the marketing world! Hopefully some others can throw out setup ideas before this plane arrives. N start the fun! If I can find the time, I will definitely try to start a build thread with the intended setup I have ordered.

I havent ordered yet...being unemployed and all...but I'm not sure I can be strong enough through wintertime, as I have nothing to build left...I think if I buy, I'll go the rtf route for all the reasons hklagges explained. And then just replace some servo's here and there.

What are you gonna use as powersetup V8?

All I can say is there are very few su-27 models and variants out there. They are not overall very popular, but there is a cult following.

I love the SU line of aircraft. I think its a beautiful model. But I have always looked at buying the kit the cheap or at least the layaway kind of route for building an aircraft. If you cant afford the RTF or dont like the components you can buy the airframe and build it the way you want or as money allows. But with the ever rising prices of the kits are starting to put even airframes out of reach for those that due build as funds allow. I too love these foamies as they offered a cheaper way to aquire an awesome looking plane that as stated flies easier with the lighter wing loading. The detail is coming up too but the rising price is becoming a wash.

The forcing to buy RTF is just not a good trend as mentioned will thin the potential lower income buyer right out of an awesome flying or looking aircraft. I am glad I hopped on my SU-34 when I did as the price shot up within 2 monthes of me getting mine. Otherwise I probably would not own one of those either.

Not trying to complain or drag the thread down as this looks like it will be and awesome plane. But for me will probably be one of the last to get on the band wagon as I have done with some other birds. Sales are becoming my best friend and seem to be the only way I can get in on these birds.

Jason

That's what the threads r here 4. So 1,2,3 yrs from now ppl will have the info they need when they do purchase. Let everyone go through the troubles & then build it the way you want when the time comes... & the way it should of been built. Lol! Who knows I'm sure they'll b a v2 & so on.

Hello there,

regarding the kit price: Keep in mind that it is quite expensive to ship the boxes from China to Switzerland (or elsewhere). And the weight-to-volume ratio is so low that it does not really matter if you ship the kit or the ARF. That means the shipping cost will affect the kit price a lot more than the ARF price.

Also, imagine you are a European vendor and order 20 kits. Then you sell 8. 12 sit in your warehouse and occupy an enormous amount of heated, rented space while you as the vendor hope that the stuff gets moved one day.

I don't think any vendor gets rich by selling these planes. For example, if you look at Lanxiangs Alibaba profile, they say their export volume is less than a million dollars. As most of Lanxiangs production will be exported, that means with the 60-70 people, they have a million or less in turnover per year. That means 15.000$ or less of turnover (not profit!) per person, and that is before ANY materials have been paid for! Not funny.

Or imagine you are a reseller and have to deal with the very large defect rate of these planes. You'll have to deal with the warranty claims and pray for the best, i.e. that the Chinese factory actually will honor the warranty claims, which it very well may not do. That's a nightmare.

So I for one am enormously happy that I'll get a plane with 1,08 meters wingspan, 1,63 meters long, 3kgs of thrust for 348 Euros (including customs, tax and shipping to my door).

Just my 0.02 cents...

Cheers,
Henrik

Henrik, That is $379 USD. That for a 70mm bird this size is not bad but when it lands in the US it will be about $100 more than that plus shipping that will probably be around $30-$35 in addition to that from the US vendor. So now this RTF foamy will be a $500 investment. Not trying to argue but rather give you an insight to what the US buyers will be paying and where we are coming from. The kit will probably be around $250-$300 to our door. In contrast I paid $274 for my SU-34 PnP to my door from China. Since the purchase of my SU-34 the option of ordering planes like it from China has vanished due to exclussivity pacts that the companies make with US vendors. So in some aspects the non-US fliers do have benefits over us at least in price. If I could get a PnP for what you will be able to get a PnP I might opt for that choice but it just wont happen.

Jason

Originally Posted by FresnoJay

Henrik, That is $379 USD. That for a 70mm bird this size is not bad but when it lands in the US it will be about $100 more than that plus shipping that will probably be around $30-$35 in addition to that from the US vendor. So now this RTF foamy will be a $500 investment. Not trying to argue but rather give you an insight to what the US buyers will be paying and where we are coming from. The kit will probably be around $250-$300 to our door. In contrast I paid $274 for my SU-34 PnP to my door from China. Since the purchase of my SU-34 the option of ordering planes like it from China has vanished due to exclussivity pacts that the companies make with US vendors. So in some aspects the non-US fliers do have benefits over us at least in price. If I could get a PnP for what you will be able to get a PnP I might opt for that choice but it just wont happen.

Jason

I see what you mean, but we in europe are not better off then you guys in the US...for instance, if I wanna buy something from hobbyking I pay twice as much including shipping as you do in some cases. So buying a kit is not often the best or even good option.

Not to say we are all victims, as long as I can make my own choices I'm no victim at all, but the only way to go around this problem is contracting suppliers on a powersetup for example.

Originally Posted by Donky73

I havent ordered yet...being unemployed and all...but I'm not sure I can be strong enough through wintertime, as I have nothing to build left...I think if I buy, I'll go the rtf route for all the reasons hklagges explained. And then just replace some servo's here and there.

What are you gonna use as powersetup V8?

Already ordered 2 cyclone power 2500kv 6s motors, 2 hobbywing platinum pro 100a esc's, & 4 new changesun 70mm 10 blade edf units(the stumax copies) (2 for spares), & rclander twin 70mm afterburn kit (rafale). Already have 5000mah & 4000mah 6s so once the plane is bought i can figuer out which will work best. I have 2 Hobbywing 80a esc's still in a pkg that I was gonna use, but am gonna go with the 100a as a precaution. Not sure what kind of #'s that new fan will pull...

It should be a smokin setup... Not litteraly, lol!

Think to get around all this I need to start planning yearly trips to china . Would be cool if I could though. Would be nice to meet guys like Andy Chen, RCL boys, etc.

Jason

My wife wants to take a vacation to china @ some point. Lil does she know thats where all my planes have come from. If we were to go we might have to ride back on a ups int'l flight, lol!

Originally Posted by v8truckin

My wife wants to take a vacation to china @ some point. Lil does she know thats where all my planes have come from. If we were to go we might have to ride back on a ups int'l flight, lol!

ROFL. Be sure to let me know when you go lol.

Jason

YEah, Ill be getting that one.