Yesterday, I visited the International Toy Show at Nuremberg, Germany. Estes, Quest and Klima were represented.

First, I had a nice talk to Rick Oster from Estes. Estes was represented at the Hobbico booth, showing both rockets and new non-rocketry products such as RC and wooden gliders and helicopters. According to Rick, the new Pro-II-Series is on a good way.

Later, I had a coffee with Andrew Nicholson from Logic RC, the new Estes European distributor. Andrew came from Ripmax, the former European importeur, and is very experienced with model rockets. He will ship to dealers in the UK and mainland Europe so Estes will continue to be available to European customers.

At the International Hobbycraft booth, Quest models were on display focused on a new line of water rockets. A few prototypes were displayed.

At Robert Klimas booth, I was able to see new prototypes of his planned composite engines. They looked very good, unfortunatly it will take another few months until we will see them in the shelves in both Europe and the US under the Quest brand. There were delays with suppliers for his new, self-contructed engine manufacturing machine. He expects to have the machine ready in late spring or summer, then he could start making samples for CE certification (however, this timeline is not fixed, delays may occur).

Pricing in Europe will be less than the black powder Weco engines he currently distributes. He has 18, 24 and 29 mm casings and will be able to produce A - F engines. His new line will include 18 mm D engines as well as plugged longburners. Currently, this ones are in the pipeline:

18 mm: A6-X, A10-X, B6-X, C6-X, D7-X, longburner: C3-P, D3-P
24 mm: C12-X, D18-X, E18-X, longburner E7-P
29 mm: E22-X, F22-X

Robert thinks that pricing for the midpower ones will be far less than what we currently pay in Europe for available reloads. According to Robert, his engines can be ignited using standard electric igniters, they may be staged and clustered like BP-engines. They are even more durable than standard BP engines.

I attach some photos and if you have questions, pls. feel free to ask!

Oliver

Attached Thumbnails

         

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European Model Rocketry: http://www.europerocketry.com
Modellraketen Info: http://www.modellraketen.com