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MTA Hobbies . MRC/Altech Marketing USA . Gyro Hobbies

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Antiques or Out of Business > Did HPI ever intend to produce helis?
 
 
Woody218
Veteran
Location: Bismarck, ND

After reading a post from Clearance, he may be on to something concerning HPI, and their buying Kalt just to liquidate helis and make a quick buck. What do you think?


Gravity Always Wins!
04-03-2002 Over year old.
 
 
Brian Bennett
Key Veteran
Location: Dugway/Tooele UT, USA

Woody, good to hear from you. As to the HPI /Kalt mission, I could only speculate-not very productive. Alan Zabo any ideas?? The distributor has changed according to the aforementioned link(s), but isn't HPI still the licensed holder/owner?

As I have heard (BEWARE: only second hand), the dollar amount to aquire the Kalt line was over one million. Their inventory would have had to be pretty darn big to make the "dump and run" strategy solvent. @ ca. 300.00/unit = 3333.3 separate units would need to be sold to just to break even. Am I missing something here?

The Baron was once the "raptor" of the 30 world. I and many others have expressed a high opinion of the Kalt line. With such a good rep, it should viewed be a good long term investment provided there are no severe internal problems appearing in the corporate books.

Awesome products, I hope they bounce back!
04-03-2002 Over year old.
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
cripskillz
Senior Heliman
Location: Paso Robles CA

That would really suck

Being that there are not but 10 plastic parts on my mercury most of which are the same as the baron I would hope someone could make the molds to at least produce replica parts If I can just keep my heli flyin Ill be a happy camper.

Copyright © 2001 - 2007 CripSkillz. All rights reserved.
04-04-2002 Over year old.
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
Woody218
Veteran
Location: Bismarck, ND

Hey, crip, I should send you some pictures of my Baron 30...great minds think alike. My kid was surfing the net, and he found your web site. He yells, "Hey come here and look at this". I looked at the pictures of your Mercury and almost swallowed my tongue. What you did with flames and mini-rocketman on your canopy is almost 100% identical to mine! I am an ex-motocross racer from before dirt being invented, and I found the stuff at Troy Lee's last spring. That is too funny!

Eric at Heliproz tells me the plan is still to get Kalt production up and going again. I sure hope he's right!


Gravity Always Wins!
04-04-2002 Over year old.
 
 
Steve Campbell
Elite Veteran
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

I've got a suspicion- and this is NOT based on any hard evidence, just a hunch- that HPI is, if not feverishly, then SECRETLY working on a line of helicopters that they will suddenly announce one day.

Clue #1: I've seen photos of machines at the Japanese trade shows, that did not resemble any ship I knew about, and which had HPI logo decals.

Clue #2: They (HPI) are being somewhat mysterious about the Kalt business. No company person will say much of anything about anything to do with helicopters- positive OR negative. I ran into this again yesterday when I talked to a nice young man in Customer Service about my HPI truck. This attitude reminds me very much of the old military axiom "We can neither confirm nor deny that." And every time I've run into that attitude from a commercial business, they had something up their sleeve. SIGARMS, the US branch of the German-Swiss weapon producer, was infamous for this. So was Federal Cartridge Company.

Anyway, there are a couple of other indicators, which I'm not at liberty to discuss publicly (yet), that make me think HPI may not be the total heli-slugs they appear to be.

Time will tell...

Steve
04-04-2002 Over year old.
 
 
z11355
rrMaster
Location: 10000 is enough time wasted.

maybe you're both right.

Maybe they did want to produce parts,
discovered the molds were hosed (gee,
think anyone who is spending $1M for a
plastic product line would PREINSPECT the
molds before they wrote the check? Idiots)
but what they got were the humans responsible
for designing the machines which is oh so much
more valuable. So they dumped the current stuff and are working on
a whole new line of machines using the human
capital they acquired.
04-04-2002 Over year old.
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
cripskillz
Senior Heliman
Location: Paso Robles CA

Hey Woody218

Send away thats cool I guess ex motocrossers think alike we like flames and skullz, but send em here if you would like cripskillz@charter.net and let me check the bad boy out.
Peace

Copyright © 2001 - 2007 CripSkillz. All rights reserved.
04-04-2002 Over year old.
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
Steve Campbell
Elite Veteran
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

<<...human capital...>>

The first time I spoke with Dave Kouchie (about this time last year, come to think of it), he was bubbling over with enthusiasm and how HPI had big plans for the Kalt line. He said that they (HPI) had managed to lure two of JR's top heli design people away, and work was ongoing , etc., etc.

When I called back about six months later, he spoke in words of one syllable. I've interrogated crime suspects who were more forthcoming...

I am NOT slamming Mr. Kouchie. I have no doubt he was simply following orders. But this sudden "mystery act" is rather annoying. You got something brewing? Okay, say so. "Yeah, we're working on things, but we can't talk about it now. Stay tuned." Or, "No, we have decided not to pursue this side of the hobby."

Most folks will take statements like that at face value. But this cloak'n'dagger crap wears thin in a hurry. That's one big reason I unloaded my Baron when I did; I didn't want to be wondering whether or not parts would be available.

Ah, whatever. I feel for you guys still flying Kalts. Best of luck to you...

Steve
04-04-2002 Over year old.
 
 
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Antiques or Out of Business > Did HPI ever intend to produce helis?
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