MiniRaceWing

[CurryKitten]

Here we go again, "clone! clone!"

The concept isn't new, the MiniRaceWing wasn't the first of its type.

I had a Teksumo with a monkeyblunt centre section made from plywood.... OK so not identical but the concept was similar... keep the expensive stuff protected in a hardened centre section so the wings can be sacrificial if they need to be.

I'm not sure why people are getting so butt-hurt about a "similar" type of aircraft coming to the market... it happened a while back with the Go-Discover which was "a clone" of the RVJet (it wasn't, it was just similar)

"Clone" and "copy" implies an exact replica... which this is not. And TechOne have been around a while... it's not just some start-up that's ripped off someone's idea. They have the means to bring something that has proved popular to the market, and at a reasonable price point... some would thank them for that.

I'm seriously confused that people would actually prefer for JUST one company to be making this type of wing where they have a monopoly and therefore the ability to charge a disproportionate amount of money for the damned thing

Lots of companies making planes is a great thing - however, I would like the MiniRaceWing guys to at least get to market first - I think that they deserve that.

It might not be an exact replica Chris, but you really can't stand there and say "just similar, probably unrelated to each other"... I'd call that a copy, just not a very complete one.  You could probably get a patent on the MiniRaceWing design.  It's enough of a different design form the monkey blunt style middle section... useless of course, as it's completely unenforceable.

That said, the copying is absolutely inevitable at some point - I think everyone just lives with it. 

[BlueFlyer]

I didn't say probably unrelated to each other. But one thing they're BOTH related to is the "concept" of having the FPV gear in a centre section. Like has been done for years with EPP wings.

With respect due to the MiniRaceWing guys (because they'll be getting notifications of this activity on this thread), I genuinely think they would have suceeded with their kickstarter if they'd priced it correctly in the first place.

Big companies don't pass on the R&D costs directly to the customer in the form of overpricing their products on launch... if they did then no-one would buy their stuff. R&D costs are an investment, they're a risk, and you only recoup those costs when your product does well and your profits outweight the initial start up costs.

[Schalonsus]

There are a lot of the key features missing from the original MRW design, so this is a very bad copy (they just copied the adjustable motor holder tube).
They missed the detachable wings (in crash, the Techone system will be destroyed in crash :D), the adjustable wing mounts, the adjustable motor angle, the good carbon, the nice tested airfoil and wing design, super simple camera mounts (3 versions) and so on...
So its barely comparable with the MRW, so is the Teksumo with monkeyblunt section, this also dont have the key features of the MRW.....

BTW the MRW guys announced they will release it before BG will sell their very bad copie (if you will/could/can call it copy)

The only downside i see is, that some will buy the crap from BG and will declare this concept as not good and therewith will damage the reputation of the MRW concept.

[BlueFlyer]

There are a lot of the key features missing from the original MRW design, so this is a very bad copy (they just copied the adjustable motor holder tube).
They missed the detachable wings (in crash, the Techone system will be destroyed in crash :D), the adjustable wing mounts, the adjustable motor angle, the good carbon, the nice tested airfoil and wing design, super simple camera mounts (3 versions) and so on...
So its barely comparable with the MRW, so is the Teksumo with monkeyblunt section, this also dont have the key features of the MRW.....

BTW the MRW guys announced they will release it before BG will sell their very bad copie (if you will/could/can call it copy)

The only downside i see is, that some will buy the crap from BG and will declare this concept as not good and therewith will damage the reputation of the MRW concept.

Where can we buy your MWR? Link please.

Also, the Teksumo with monkeyblunt section was not a direct comparison... it was just illustrating that the concept of having a hardened narrow centre section for the electronics wasn't a "new" idea.

[CurryKitten]

Big companies don't pass on the R&D costs directly to the customer in the form of overpricing their products on launch... if they did then no-one would buy their stuff. R&D costs are an investment, they're a risk, and you only recoup those costs when your product does well and your profits outweight the initial start up costs.

I think we're trying to argue about facts we don't know here.  The risk of getting into a design and bringing it to market is of course that your upfront costs can be very high, and we're in quite a niche market here and so the risk is higher.  Obviously, they tried to mitigate their upfronts by raising money over kickstarter but that fell through.  I do agree it was expensive, but we just don't know what costs they were dealing with, or what their break-even point was.  Even if it was a good success, I can't imagine these guys would be jumping about in huge piles of money Scrooge McDuck style

[Schalonsus]

And i just said that the hardened center section is just one key feature of the MRW.
It is not for sale yet, but neither is the TechOne. Till BG can sell them, one or two months will pass... so stay tuned for the MRW be availabel in the next two month. I can just give you the information i got from the MRW guys, thats what they said. I wish i could tell you more about the release date but i unfotunately dont get more information from em. But they are hard working on their project. I would be happy if they would inform their potential customers more frequently....

[Schalonsus]

You can officially pre-order now on www.flybot.de

[beesleyboy]

You can officially pre-order now on www.flybot.de

That's not a bad price for a good wing kit.

[CurryKitten]

Well, I did support the Kickstarter, so I'm going to go ahead and pre-order (and my wife said I can have it for my birthday (in May))

Looking forward to something portable and quick :)

[HerkyBird]

I'll be interested to see how you get on with your build Wayne as I've ordered one too. The portability and ability to experiment with different wings sold it for me. What power set-up are you going for?

[CurryKitten]

I'll be interested to see how you get on with your build Wayne as I've ordered one too. The portability and ability to experiment with different wings sold it for me. What power set-up are you going for?

I was going for the motor they list on their site, with a 60a ESC and an 1800mah 4s.  I've not really had anything that goes fast before and I like that idea :)

[HerkyBird]

Ahh, OK, you're going for a different beast to me then, I'm not going for pure speed so I'm putting the 2212 2200kv motor and 45A esc out of my little flown evo in it on 3s 2200mah. I might even try and squeeze a vector or maybe a micro-vector in there!

[CurryKitten]

Well, I've already got a working Falcon wing with a Storm AP on there which runs on 2200 3's, so something different for this one.... however, that's what I like about it.  On a regular wing, I'd have cut various holes and things after finding where the equipment has to layout to balance things up.  With this wing it's pretty trivial to even swap out a motor/esc etc from the centre section and sort out the cg by moving wings/motor position around

[beesleyboy]

It will defo be interesting to see how it goes, I think it will be a lot of fun to fly, wounder weather it will have room to take the Lightbridge.
be watching this space.
;) G

[Markus@flybot]

Haha, I just realized Schalonsus completely owns this thread   ;)

I'm gonna go ahead and open a new thread to be able to edit the first post and keep it up to date. I'll still be reading here and if there any questions please ask!

Also, thanks for posting the good news Schalonsus!  :D