So You Want to Be a Composite RC Sailplane Manufacturer?
Part III: Welcome to the Hotel California
In the third of this series, I am going to continue telling my story, as it transpired, in the hope that you can use some of my experiences to avoid costly mistakes. Hopefully after reading this comedy of errors you’ll go more safely along the crooked path and across the many pitfalls in your own quest. — JH
So where had we got to? OK, I remember: we’d done the factory tour, which quickly illuminated several problems — none insurmountable, plus more importantly brought up a number of important questions which would need to be answered. The meeting then continued in the VIP Meeting room where the VIP in question, myself, had given a thorough quiz on line drawings, CAD conversion and then CNC machining.
The Facts of the Matter
I had been surprisingly well satisfied there, so I moved on to my more ‘difficult to politely address’ questions, such as how the heck were they running a factory with a very slender portfolio of two models and only two workers to make them — and this is where it got even more interesting. After a bit of hesitation, the story began to come out. What had happened is that the owner — an enthusiastic modeler and F3A flyer in his own right — had perceived an opportunity to start up a factory to make model gliders, and so without much further thought, that was exactly what he had done.
Being a power flyer, and with limited information available to him, what he had not realized is that the glider fraternity — or at least those like us, my dear readers, who tend to spend a lot of money on our toys — are really picky. A few months of copying other manufacturer’s gliders had resulted in two mould sets: a very dated 3m thermal model, and a 3m scale DG600. Close examination of the models they had bought in, and training the workers from information available in China had given some basic construction knowledge, but as I had seen, this was sadly lacking indeed. More information found on the internet through bootleg server connections had added to the knowledge base but it was not enough by a very long shot. The models were rubbish.
Game Over
Despite aggressive sales efforts to market the copied models, the results were disappointing with just a couple of requests for free samples, and no feedback after that. During the dialogues, they’d rapidly found out that making copies of existing products was, to say the least, severely frowned upon by most of the dealers they’d approached in the west, and especially those from whom they’d ripped off the first models.
Finally realizing that a) they did not have the unique designs that they needed to attract a good customer base, and b) in any case they did not have skills needed to make the products, followed by c) they couldn’t solve those problems. The company was forced into the first processes of closing down. The real catalyst for this severe decision was not the lack of knowledge or the lack of products, but the impossibility obtaining them. This was about the point where I showed up.
A Sliver of Light at the End of the Tunnel
Following a lot of at times heated discussion, it was readily apparent that IF — and it was a massive IF — the yawning gap caused by the first two ‘missing links’ could be shored up, then the owner was sure that he and his team had the time, the money and the resources to do a good job. Hearing this, my interest, that had been had been emulating a depleted uranium parachute on news of closure, rapidly started to escalate again.
The day ended with no conclusions; but I’d promised to give the whole thing a lot of thought, and so after checking into the horrible hotel — I’d dubbed it the Hotel California — the entire company of seven persons and myself went out for a nice Henan cuisine dinner — which was great — as long as you don’t mind eating some very unusual cuisine. But the beer was good and the steamed rice exquisite. Even better was the expressions on the faces of the assembly when I revealed, finally that I had a pretty fair knowledge of Mandarin Chinese. A good night as I recall.
Welcome to the Hotel California
The iconic Eagles song rang through my mind as I checked out of the hotel at 7am the next day. The establishment had turned out to be just as bad as I’d thought. Believe me, I’m a very experienced China hand and I have stayed in dozens of hotels all over China. I’m also not an anti-smoking evangelist, but I’d had enough. Forget second hand smoke — at the Hotel California I was dealing with multiple tiers of the damned inescapable toxic haze. About one and a half of every three cigarettes smoked in the world is smoked in China, and I was sure that most of them were smoked in my hotel, and more specifically in my ‘non-smoking’ (it said so on the door!) hotel room. At breakfast — a harrowing experience, most of the males ate and smoked simultaneously, which was disturbing to the extent that it made me feel quite unwell. Of course, I’d seen this behavior many times before, but for some obscure reason this time it affected me more than normal. Probably something to do with the ‘unusual’ food, good rice and great beer the previous night.
I’d already checked out so I grabbed a couple of bread rolls and bolted; exiting those toxically vaporous halls as rapidly as I could. Legging it outside, clutching my backpack I went to wait in the comparatively fresh air — where at least a dozen people were smoking but thankfully there was a breeze and I found the upwind side — fast. Happily, soon I heard the stentorian announcement of the dreaded van’s imminent arrival in the distance which at least indicated that my pickup would not be late.
Could It…Would It Work?
I’d gone over the entire thing in my mind at the hotel the previous evening, and after writing down the pros versus the cons as is my habit in such cases, I’d found a lot of hope in finding a solution to the problems. I’d also started to believe that this really could be a godsend, as if I could get the standard of the models up to acceptable, maybe even pretty good standards, but keep the prices affordable, then many more people who wanted to fly moulded models would have the chance. To do that I had also realized that just about everything that had been done would need to be changed so later, in the Company VIP room, the VIP’s got down to some serious business. I had things to say and I hoped that they wouldn’t be too resistant. If they had been I would have politely asked to be taken back to the airport, and that would have been it.
The Die Is Cast
Knowing that it would take far more time than I had to go through all the reasons why I wanted to do the things that would have to be done, I first gave them a simple idea: listen to what I say, let me do the things that I want to do in your manufacturing processes, don’t ask me why — and you will be happy. The reasons, I explained, would become apparent later. I followed that with the proposition that IF they could accept that doctrine, then we would go forward, and after a really short discussion, the deed was done. I was taken to the airport, and after giving the owner some advice about the van’s exhaust, and a lot of happy, waving bye-byes, I headed back to Shanghai.
Epilogue
The Good
Well, I was on a mission again. I really hoped that this venture might allow models to be well-designed, well-made and sold for affordable prices. I’d hoped to do something good that would allow the many younger or not so well-heeled flyers to at last be able to enter the market. And this is how it started — as well as it could. With some effort, some time, and quite a lot of expense I taught the company — now renamed and re-invented — how to make good models and to help them along the way I designed a succession of planes that were received well by the market. Indeed, a 2m all-rounder I designed is still in high demand after over a decade in production, so I must have done something right.
I never had any commercial aspirations, I never asked for or received any money, I paid much of my own way, including flights, and although I was made partnership promises, they never materialized. You will probably think me a fool. You’d probably be right, as things — as they tend to — took a series of nose dives during the next two years. After a year of actual sales, the company was growing quite fast and by that time they had four of my designs in production, all of which they were marketing albeit with my help, very successfully.
The Bad
Then, sporadic at first, a few concerns started to arise. I was hearing a growing number of complaints about the models. Not the designs or the performance, but rather the construction. Of course, I contacted the company to try to find out what was going on. I should add that at the time, they had attracted a number of new investors who did not know the business. At first, I was assured that the quality problems were just a temporary, training-related glitch and that things would return to normal immediately. Well they didn’t. I finally found out that the new investor ‘policy’ was that if the models were more fragile and broke more easily, then they would be replaced more often — hence more sales. I argued strenuously against this, but alas, money talks.
The Ugly
A short while later I was told that my design services would no longer be required, and that from that point only world champions would be qualified as the company model designers. As the final straw, to add insult to injury, the company completely removed any reference to me or my designs on their website and the credits were all reassigned to themselves. When I asked about all the promises they’d made, I was told — “oh that, well, we changed our minds…” It seemed that as I’d put no actual money in, nor yet asked for any financial returns, my ‘book’ value was zero despite all I’d done.
Even with long experience in China, and dealing with Chinese companies that was quite shocking, and from that point it deteriorated even further, so I tried as hard as I could to get away from all of it. Now here I am, a long time later and a long way down the rocky road having accumulated an awful (sometimes literally) lot of experience, and running another model glider design and manufacturing business, though on completely different principles.
Water well under the bridge now, but with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight what went wrong? What should have been done differently? Given the chance, what would I have done differently?
Next time I’ll tell you.
©2021 James Hammond
Resources
The fourth part of this series coming up in the November issue of the NEW RC Soaring Digest. Signed up for the RCSD mailing list to be notified when that’s out. Read the next article in this issue, return to the previous article in this issue or go to the table of contents. A PDF version of this article, or the entire issue, is available upon request.
