Originally Posted by burkefj

It's a tough thing for small producers to invest a lot of time and materials for an item that may or may not sell, typically I'll only release a kit if I'm pretty sure it will sell, or if it uses the majority of components that I already have, so the only investment I have to make is in templates and instructions. I typically only kit things that I have built for myself because I thought they were neat to start with.

The only time I've done pre-orders was for the Bomarc, Thunderchief and Skydart upscales that a few people really wanted me to make but that I didn't think would be a big return in general, I asked for enough pre-orders to make it worth my time to get the components and spend the time to make templates and kit those items and it has worked out ok. I had already built prototypes for my own use so I knew they flew well. In one case it was a model that I did not want to build for myself, but that design was straight forward enough and the customers were competent RC flyers so they took on the challenge of confirming my estimated boost CG and doing test glides and the test flights themselves.

However I certainly understand ordering vapor ware and not getting anything making people reluctant. I have had two transactions with John, one just recently with a design I asked him to work on that took a month or two but he did create it before asking for $$, and he has delivered both times.