Best Deal on Tubes, Rings, Etc ?

Otherwise just buy new parts from one of many suppliers.

Rockets generally DO need rocket tubes.

Jerry

Hi Bill,

I have been quite impressed with LOC's paper body tubes for MPR and HPR (when you glass it). They are quite strong. Although I've never used them to date, I've heard nothing BUT good things about PML's Phenolic tubing. This is the best overall tubing for HPR, IMHO. You've got to glass it, though, since it can be quite brittle. I've heard about, but never seen, fiberglass tubing. This tubing is only going to cost you more $$$$, so, you might want to stay away from it until you get into the more extreme projects.

Also, I'd like to invite you to join us at The Rocketry Forum,

Jason

Have they ever paid their debt to ER?

Nope. They still owe over $1400 plus interest. I've not dealt with them since this incident. And here I thought Dave was a class guy, NOT!

Aerotech Inc. didn't.

He is a class act.

ER has no (verry little) "pull" and the market is thin and shrinking and being whipsawed by now RCS.

Jerry

I've never heard of this "incident" - what actually happened?

I've ordered from Red Arrow a couple of times and consider them a good source for tubes and rings.

-dave w

jerry irvine/us rockets hasn't.

Fully 100% paid-up to Extreme Rocketry magazine.

So what? If you take out an ad in a magazine, you have an obligation to pay for it. But that's something I wouldn't expect YOU to understand.

Are you a debt collector now?

Looks like Aerotech screwed ER also. Why doesn't anyone complain about that.

AT didn't pay HPR either. Sucks for Brucie 8-). I'll at least give Brucie credit for not whining about it.

I think that was sort of a side effect of the "all-or-nothing" nature of the bankruptcy system. They had to include their ordinary commercial accounts-payable (along with the claims being pressed by other parties that were also damaged in the fire - which were really the debts from which they needed relief) in their aggregate statement of "total debts" for the bankruptcy filing.

-dave w

Why doesn't anyone complain

This tells us a lot about you.

Would it possibly be because they followed the legal mechanism of filing for bankruptcy?

David Erbas-White

Oh so, they couldn't have paid their bills before they filed for bankruptcy? They owed employees money too.

Please don't misunderstand me. I don't condone bankruptcy. I've been in severe financial straits myself, and bankruptcy would have been the 'easy' solution, but it's not the one I took.

My point is that there IS a legal mechanism in place that they followed. Was it ethical? No. Was it legal? Yes. Was what RAH (apparently) did ethical or legal? No to both.

As long as the mechanism for bankruptcy is part of the legal system, people will take advantage of it. Don't like it? Vote for legislators who will change it.

Do I think the employees got the raw end of the deal? Yes, certainly. However, there may be some mechanisms in place that protect them more than other creditors (I don't know). Frankly, though, the employees have a better 'window' on what's going on than outside vendors did, and thus have the ABILITY to protect themselves a little bit better. If Aerotech was paying on a Net30 basis, for example, they easily had 30 days before any vendors would have even become suspicious (and in reality it would have been more like 60-90 days). The employees were probably (assumption here) paid on a bi-weekly basis, and if they missed a paycheck, that's one heck of a "heads up" that financial problems are looming.

In the longer term, the employees (if they don't get fully paid) also have the future option of not working for the new, re-branded Aerotech if they feel that any 'new' terms are not acceptable to them (such as a 'bonus' that might reimburse them, etc.). Given current economic conditions, the 'price' of maintaining their job might have been to simply go forward and forget the back pay (again, this is all pure speculation).

David Erbas-White

Taking the logic of this statement one step further, you will note certain suppliers were "paid in full" prior to filing to keep their names off the BK papers.

So ER was obviously of low priority despite the debt being relatively small.

Jerry