I found a scale kit in Sweden for the SAAB Sapphire (a 50's Air Force trainer)
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. It is a 3 channel, electric, 400 motor, with a 34 inch wing span. The kit has no hardware, no motor, no speed control, and no landing gear (hand launch). I could not believe the price on this item....about $145 USD. Yikes!!! Did I not get the exchange rate right, or is this normal in European countries? I suppose if the price really is this high, it may be due to the low volume of sales and the high taxes in Sweden?
I can't speak for Swedish kits, but that's about what I paid for a Dutch RBC kit of a Douglas F4-D Skyray. A lot of money for a little kit, but, except for some poor English instructions, it's very well done. So, since Ford now owns Volvo and GM owns SAAB cars, I suppose you'll just have to support the Swedish economy in another way and buy the SAAB kit! ;-)
European prices have always been much higher than ours. I lived in Germany in the 70's when the exchange rate wasn't very good. I ordered everything from SIG! Even with the shipping it was cheaper. Now that the dollar SUCKS against the European currencies, their products are downright crazy!
I have been living in the UK for the last 3.5 years. I have just about given up flying for now because of the costs. There ARE some good bargains, such as GWS products, but, mostly, everything is now about twice the cost of US hobby sources. People living in the UK can order from US sources and pay less eve including the VAT and customs.
I don';t find it that expenive or that cheap frankly. Some stuff is actually cheaper.
Most US stuff IS more expensive, but thats teh way teh duty etc works. European stuff is often cheaper. We tend to buy Czech, not Yank, as it were.
Far east stuff should be cheap, but often isn't - monopoly importers of e.g. Futanba? Dunno. Probably. The market is maybe 1/10th US size, so everythiumng is expensive due to similar overheads much lower volume.
I have the SAAB Sapphire, not built yet, but WOW what a finish... It sure is expencive, but everything is in Sweden *sigh* If you want a SAAB there is no other options then to buy this one, or the B17 from the same company (there is a SAAB called B17) (I have seen som crappy attempt from someone to market the J39 Gripen as a foamie, but I didnt like that one too much..)
I would really like someone else to manufacture fomies from SAAB, so that there would be a cheap alternative, if there was a cheap SAAB 91 Sapphire (or SK 50 as the military called it) i would buy it.
I'm thinking of making a fanfold/depron model from the excellent plan I got with the expencive kit from MJD. but I'm not a builder (that why the kit is still in the box). As the SAAB 91 is one of the most beutiful planes I know (It might be cause I worked on the real thing in the Swedish airforce) Another plane I would like to see as a model is the SAAB 105 twin jet trainer (that I also worked on as an airplan tec) I think the 105 (or SK 60) would be a nice profile build, with one big or two small fans.
----- Original Message ----- From: "GuW" Newsgroups: rec.models.rc.air Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2003 3:22 AM Subject: Re: Are Prices Really This High in Europe?
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I agree on the SAAB Sapphire. It is THE most graceful looking small plane to come out of the 50's. It must make a wonderful civil aircraft as well.
For those who would like a nice photo and history of it:
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Go back to the main page and browse the rest of Swedish air power, old and new. Some good stuff here.
It is really as graceful in the sky, and handles like a dream, I was fortunate enough to get a fair share of stick time (it is a trainer after all) and it is a dream to fly (compared to Cessnas and ultralight's, that I also have som stick time in).
It is so easy on the pilot that it didn't give enough training to fly, you could just about put anyone behind the stick and tell them to fly from point A to point B, and they actually enjoyed it. (I'm a living proof to that, I even tryed a few landing approaches)
Although we had one of the Advanced aircrafts too, that was used for airshows, and it does that too. One of the favourite manouvers to watch was the low inverted flyby, when the motor went dead. (supposedly from lack of fuel, although they were equipped with special a tank for inverted flights) then a half roll back to normal, and a restart... Always a crowdpleaser...
In traveling in Europe before I retired I found that just about everything was higher priced than in the US. I had started a collection of Henckels Zwilling cutlery for my daughters. It was not even available in the states at that time. Over the period of a few years as I filled in their sets I found that they were then selling in the US for much less than in Germany where they were manufactured. Same for the excellent Permagrit products made in the UK, they cost less imported here to the states. Yes, I could have bought a big ticket item like a BMW or Mercedes for less than in the states . . . but then the cost of bringing them up to our emission standards leveled that out . . . and the warranty was not longer in effect. I have no idea why things manufactured in the EU cost more than the same product in the US.
When our sales force came to the US for our annual sales meeting bash they came with the clothes on their backs. At the first opportunity they were off to the local mall, first buying suitcases and then filling them with the essentials of life, socks, underwear, children's and adult clothes, denims . . you name it. They all went home with the max limit on baggage.
Some won some very nice products, electronics, stereo equipment - etc., but gave it away rather than pay the duty upon return.
Why are the Europeans getting ripped off so by their own countries?
Red, this isnt the right forum for debatin economics and politics, but we do get a lot in return for our taxes too...
We all deal with our countrys economic systems differently, and we all have to live with what we have.
We dont guard our own products by putting extra taxes on imported items as the US does, but I recently heard that you are going to buy steel again, instead of maintaing the high prices and low quality on your own steel...
Red, I can only speak for my own country, Norway. I have the same experience with prices here. I posted a week ago an example of the difference in prices. In short, I paid $220 on a Tower order that would cost about $587 in Norway. It's outrageous, I know. But we aren't getting ripped off that much really. Our largest hobby store has had economic problems even with the large difference in pricing. One expl. for the difference: Our minimum wage is around $14, yours is a bit lower. The hobby-community is 50-60 times larger in the US. Also, the exchange rate for $ is now as low as I can remember. 1USD is now
6.81 NOK (norwegian currency) It has been as high as 11 NOK, so you see, it's in our favor at the time. (Not counting our own export of course) Needless to say, I shop at Tower so I can get more bang for the buck. I feel sorry for our LHS's of course :-)
Rather than look for a basic course in economics here, you should buy one of the many available text books on the subject. Also, lots of information can be found on the web -- as with many subjects, the new "Open Courseware" offering from MIT, at , can also be a good source of information.
The short answer to your question is to remind you that cost is only one of the parameters influencing the market price of a good or service.
I got my answer, and then some! I did not mean to start an international incident. The lively discussion is interesting though. Thank goodness we all have free speech in our respective countries!
Back to R/C stuff. I will look at Bob Holloman's plans, to see if he has anything in the SAAB Sapphire. I am looking for a .60 size, anyway.
The more reasonable ezxplanation is that high volume sales cost less to manufactire. The UK is a smaller market and somewhet different in regualtions - enough to make UK market bike a bit of a specail.
Then add in the lower volumes, the higher cost of distribution and sales....no one gets rich selling kit.
The USA is a young country, relatively (for its size) unpopulated and, up till recently, having pretty much all the natural resources it needed pretty much lying around eassily extractable.
That, plus continued acess to immigrant laborforces able and willing to work for low wages plus a subsidised farming policy meant that food and housing were cheap and plentiful, and most other thiungs could be knocked up pretty cheaply as well.
Contrast Europe where the whole area is subdivided and owned, its crowded, its resources were exploited a century or more ago, and where we have had to 'live on our wits' for a century or more. And the end of colonial type trading and geo politics meant that access to cheap labor and production were extremely limited.
Inshort, the socio-economic position that the USA enjoys, was essentially where the European powers were about one hundred years ago.
A fact never mentioned by the poloticians, who would raher have you believe that the high material standard of living is something to do with owning weapons, being fundamentally Good Clever People, and of course believing in the American Dream. Not to mention voting for them.
Pretty much the same crap that was peddled to the Europeans by their leaders up to the first world war.
In time the reality of the situation will emerge to the point at which it is no longer able to maintian the fiction, but for now we have what we have. Enjoy it. Its dying already.
Mad cow disease will be just teh excuse other countries need to stem the export of some cheap farm produce from the USA. A faklling dollar will help the export balance, but teh de facto farm subisides will upset thrird world countries whose major exports ae farm produce, and teh dollar slide will continue making imporst of foreign goods more expensive: This won't result in a renaissance of US manufacturing tho, its already gone by and large.
In short, globalisation will result oin a slowly falling standrad of living in teh USA for the next 100 years or so, as the cash and investment moves out to e.g. China India etc.
Then this argument over preces will seem what it really is - a small comnment on a historical curiousity - the impbalanec between nations at a time of rapid social and economic change.
Meanwhile, buy where you can as best you can, fly yor models, have fun, and 'enjoy the good fortune you still possess', as the I ching says :-)
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