I was talking this over with some rockets buds at lunch today. Actually, we were talking about odd-ball sport motors, not competition, but it sort of still applies.

One key problem with the boutique motor market is longevity. Given the present supplier base - essentially Estes and Held - a vendor has to order a significant quantity, then sit on the inventory for years until it's low enough to re-order. And this is done under the threat of having the motors declared OOP since they're not actually being produced, but merely being warehoused.

A key to protecting the investment is for the motors to be certified for a much longer period of time. The NAR seems to be moving in the right direction in this regard. The window has been extended to 5 years past end of production, up from the previous 3 years, as I understand it. And they have a program to study the feasibility of certifying OOP motors. Both these measures would protect the makers and users of boutique motors.

I'd buy a crate of B14-0's (hypothetical example) if I knew I could fly them at club launches for years to come. Knowing this, a potential supplier of those should be more willing to make them. So fringe motors - high thrust, low thrust, long delay, etc - would be made more viable by these longer cert periods.

In a nutshell, certification policies seem to be a key to us getting niche motors.

As for competition, a similar situation exists - small volumes and fringe characteristics. But the added requirement of ready availability will not be met, except during the period right after a production run.

Nevertheless, I'm hopeful that the slowly evolving OOP rules will ultimately enable us to get motors that aren't otherwise available.

Doug