Did you read the January newsletter?

[JasonK]

Read all 20+ pages of thread. Thats why I stated I got the "impression".
Anyways, semantic. What I was trying ro get is that FT is stating mater series controlled by Overstreet, while Overstreet states FT controls.
Perhaps if Overstreet controls the plans, he could sell them at his discretion?

all I get from that post is that FT controls the release of the kits. Which makes sense, as FT manages the production pipelines, sales process, etc. To me, it sounds like the agreement is Overstreet does the design work, FT does the manufacturing, packaging, shippipng, etc. So I don't see any conflict with the statement of "the designs are Overstreets, but release dates are driven by FT"

I am not going to read 20+ pages to get an 'impression' when the post in question doesn't give any reason to believe the already standing understanding could be wrong.

 

[CappyAmeric]

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=44158657&postcount=278

But J has posted his response. They are his designs, certainly free to do as he pleases with them.

Quite true, but there is even more to it. Frankly, everyone who works for a living would be highly insulted if their employer suggested that they should come to work for free… and especially if the employer kept saying it. Asking for ”free stuff” is at a at the very least bad manners, and it shows a distinct lack of thankfulness for what has already been done.

 

[rcmanic]

all I get from that post is that FT controls the release of the kits. Which makes sense, as FT manages the production pipelines, sales process, etc. To me, it sounds like the agreement is Overstreet does the design work, FT does the manufacturing, packaging, shippipng, etc. So I don't see any conflict with the statement of "the designs are Overstreets, but release dates are driven by FT"

I am not going to read 20+ pages to get an 'impression' when the post in question doesn't give any reason to believe the already standing understanding could be wrong.

Ok, so FT is making the kits and thats great. Why should they throttle potential selling of plans? Overstreet should be able to make a decision with his plans when to release, price, etc. There is high demand for the plans. I am NOT stating that they should be given away for free, but rather when they should be released for sale.

 

[Rasterize]

As a point of order or clarification, "Splinter189" is, in fact, John Overstreet. (Disclosed with permission of course)
Considering his statement in post #36 of this thread, I will stand by my statement in post #20.
Statements quoted in RCgroups seem to be 9 months old.
Of course, stating how things are and stating how you would like them to be, are technically two different points.

 

[SSgt Duramax]

I am honestly shocked Jack at 13th squadron has all of his posted, he could easily charge for them, with some polishing and refinements. I wouldn't mind paying 5 bucks for them either. There are MS designs posted, but pretty much the ones that aren't already released by FT are released by Jack or someone else. And Jack is a kid and can make his own plans.... You all could probably go together and commission him or someone to design you a plane of your choosing, or learn to do it yourself.

I personally don't really care what John does. He makes the plans, he could have probably never went into business with and made them himself. I have a good idea how he fits into the picture, and I am pretty sure he does more than just design.

Here is probably the main reason John doesn't release his plans, once they are released, they are released. The genie is out of the bottle. Unless you can 100% guarantee the people you sent it to won't slide a copy to another sole they are going to proliferate.

So you can charge 5 dollars a plan, 40 dollars a plan, or put them out for free on the internet, someone you don't want getting them will get them. Yeah, putting them behind a membership or paywall slows it down, but it doesn't stop it, so that is why John doesn't put them out, because if he does, he may get the privilege of seeing his designs counterfeited in Chinese DTFB, or maybe he just doesn't want anyone building them not from an SBK and complaining about the design, or maybe he just doesn't want to share them?

 

[FlyingMonkey]

As it is currently, I do not see releasing plans.

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=44158657&postcount=278

But J has posted his response. They are his designs, certainly free to do as he pleases with them.

This is a bit awkward.

I'm guessing you're not aware of who Splinter189 is.

 

[rcmanic]

This is a bit awkward.

I'm guessing you're not aware of who Splinter189 is.

I know who Splinter189 is. That is why I said J (John) has posted his response.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

I personally don't really care what John does. He makes the plans, he could have probably never went into business with and made them himself. I have a good idea how he fits into the picture, and I am pretty sure he does more than just design.

John is a businessman, and by the looks of it, a rather successful one. He's been generous with a few of his plans, but he has since made a business from his designs.

If you follow any of the posts he's made on Facebook, he's invested in an amazing facility that is everything that Flite Test has in Ohio, and more. Personally I hope that he finds even greater success with this venture, than his previous ones. He's taken what FT has done and gone a step or three beyond, and I bet Josh couldn't be happier. One thing I've seen from Josh is he celebrates other's successes as well if not more than his own.

 

[rcmanic]

I am honestly shocked Jack at 13th squadron has all of his posted, he could easily charge for them, with some polishing and refinements. I wouldn't mind paying 5 bucks for them either. There are MS designs posted, but pretty much the ones that aren't already released by FT are released by Jack or someone else. And Jack is a kid and can make his own plans.... You all could probably go together and commission him or someone to design you a plane of your choosing, or learn to do it yourself.

I personally don't really care what John does. He makes the plans, he could have probably never went into business with and made them himself. I have a good idea how he fits into the picture, and I am pretty sure he does more than just design.

Here is probably the main reason John doesn't release his plans, once they are released, they are released. The genie is out of the bottle. Unless you can 100% guarantee the people you sent it to won't slide a copy to another sole they are going to proliferate.

So you can charge 5 dollars a plan, 40 dollars a plan, or put them out for free on the internet, someone you don't want getting them will get them. Yeah, putting them behind a membership or paywall slows it down, but it doesn't stop it, so that is why John doesn't put them out, because if he does, he may get the privilege of seeing his designs counterfeited in Chinese DTFB, or maybe he just doesn't want anyone building them not from an SBK and complaining about the design, or maybe he just doesn't want to share them?

Yup. Therein lies the rub. FT knows that eventually any plan (released or sold) will be available free with a little savvy internet searching. FT would like to make it a revenue stream while they can. If that is the agreement bt Overstreet/ FT, that's fine.
If Overstreet doesn't want to share them...well that's sad. His designs are truly masterful and the community at large will always remember his designs if shared, just like Bud Nosen, Trittle, etc.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Yup. Therein lies the rub. FT knows that eventually any plan (released or sold) will be available free with a little savvy internet searching. FT would like to make it a revenue stream while they can. If that is the agreement bt Overstreet/ FT, that's fine.
If Overstreet doesn't want to share them...well that's sad. His designs are truly masterful and the community at large will always remember his designs if shared, just like Bud Nosen, Trittle, etc.

Fortunately for us, he is sharing his designs. In kit form. I know I wouldn't want to have to try to cut all of those out by hand.

 

[Tench745]

There's also the question of have we as a community lived up to the reason Josh was making and sharing the plans for free? We were supposed to take those free plans and go out and share them with our communities. But I don't see a lot of build nights being posted online. Where's the pictures and videos of FT community members sitting down with a church youth group or a scout troop, and showing them how much fun building from foam board can be?

The closest I've seen is the guys doing podcasts hosting virtual build nights. And this is a good thing, but not exactly what I think Josh had in mind when he made the free plans promise.

@FlyingMonkey I say the following with love and not anger; I hope that tone will come across.

This is not the first time I have seen you make a statement like this either on the Facebook page or elsewhere. And I understand fully what you mean, we as a community have not fully taken the Flite Fest model and run with it like we might have. But, I think your statement's focus on large group builds and public events, intentionally or not, implies that the one-on one interactions are somehow lesser.

I am not part of any large groups. I am not associated with any clubs, or schools, or anything like that, and I have no children. However, my interest in model aviation, fed by the passion and resources shared by Flite Test, helped rebuild my relationship with my father after a rocky patch. It helped grow my friendships with two older gentleman who used to fly hang-gliders. I was able to introduce my best friend to slow park flyers and open her eyes to what she is capable of. I hope to use model aviation to grow closer to more of my friends who have shown interest but seem so distant these days. As my friends toddlers grow up I hope to introduce them to this wonderful hobby with some of the FT trainer aircraft I have built, and in that way build a relationship with them as well. I brought over a model plane to my friend's house and his daughter saw it and said "I love airplanes." I want to nurture that as best I can.
In the end are these not also the kinds of relationships that Josh has been so vocally passionate about? Is this not also what the free plans were for?
I know I would not be where I am in life, in the hobby, and in my own skills if I had not had Flite Test videos to inspire me and the accessibility of the free plans to help me get to where I could start sharing that with others.

Group builds are great, and I want to make one happen someday, but the one-on-one is just as important.

 

[FlyerInStyle]

Josh makes a lot of hopeful statements that don't always work out.

<Cough>Shinden<Cough>

Something else to consider was the intent for the free plans. Cheap easy designs to get people into the hobby. There's about 80 plans in the SP0NZ plans index, with several of them well beyond the level of beginner level aircraft in both build and flight levels.

On that note, the plans have moved well beyond beginner level. Flite Test has come a long way from the original line drawings that Josh used to make in his corel draw program.

There's also the question of have we as a community lived up to the reason Josh was making and sharing the plans for free? We were supposed to take those free plans and go out and share them with our communities. But I don't see a lot of build nights being posted online. Where's the pictures and videos of FT community members sitting down with a church youth group or a scout troop, and showing them how much fun building from foam board can be?

The closest I've seen is the guys doing podcasts hosting virtual build nights. And this is a good thing, but not exactly what I think Josh had in mind when he made the free plans promise.

Just add on to this, some people like me attempt to organize it, but it doesnt work out there is a 99 percent chance that my local library will refuse me tryign to host a build event there

 

[SSgt Duramax]

Fortunately for us, he is sharing his designs. In kit form. I know I wouldn't want to have to try to cut all of those out by hand.

I truly don't want to scratch build for a while after cutting out all of the pieces for my last master type build. Yeah, it was fun and rewarding, but hand cutting it is tedious. If that guy ever gets the kits in for the portable needle cutter again, $150 doesn't seem so bad.

Since I'll probably just be buying kits in those from now on, I would like him to make a King Air, or some other kind larger civil bird. He said a full size P-40 is coming, so I think that will be the next Master Series I do. I mean 60 bucks and I already have the electronics... not a bad deal.

Reason I say that is I find myself eyeballing this everytime I get on hobbyking. I just cant think of a way to justify it.

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/avios-p...D=86001&indexName=hbk_live_products_analytics

John is a businessman, and by the looks of it, a rather successful one. He's been generous with a few of his plans, but he has since made a business from his designs.

If you follow any of the posts he's made on Facebook, he's invested in an amazing facility that is everything that Flite Test has in Ohio, and more. Personally I hope that he finds even greater success with this venture, than his previous ones. He's taken what FT has done and gone a step or three beyond, and I bet Josh couldn't be happier. One thing I've seen from Josh is he celebrates other's successes as well if not more than his own.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. He is more than just a dude that sits at a computer and designs things and sends them to flite test. From what it sounds like to me, he has some serious skin in the game. I don't follow him all that closely to be honest. I think what he has done and how he has marketed it is great. I know if I had what I think he has invested, I wouldn't be giving away my plans for free.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

This is not the first time I have seen you make a statement like this either on the Facebook page or elsewhere.

I find it interesting that people feel the need to speak out when I make a comment supporting Flite Test, here or on Facebook. But are silent as people insult the FT crew.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Just add on to this, some people like me attempt to organize it, but it doesnt work out there is a 99 percent chance that my local library will refuse me tryign to host a build event there

I'm looking for venues. My town hall has said I can use their facility, and they'll waive the use fees if I'm doing a beginner oriented event. The county airport said I can host an event there for a build with the EAA and their Young Eagles program. I haven't checked with my library yet.

 

[FlyerInStyle]

I'm looking for venues. My town hall has said I can use their facility, and they'll waive the use fees if I'm doing a beginner oriented event. The county airport said I can host an event there for a build with the EAA and their Young Eagles program. I haven't checked with my library yet.

The problem is I guess teens are not taken up that way. The library was the only place htat gave me a chance. Maybe I will go out of town to another library where I got to use a glowforge.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

The problem is I guess teens are not taken up that way. The library was the only place htat gave me a chance. Maybe I will go out of town to another library where I got to use a glowforge.

That will be the test for sure. I have the venues, but do I have the audience?

We'll see.

 

[Tench745]

I find it interesting that people feel the need to speak out when I make a comment supporting Flite Test, here or on Facebook. But are silent as people insult the FT crew.

I don't know if this is meant as a commentary on my post, or just a general observation. I know that as a moderator you are exposed to so much more of the good and the bad than I am. So I will assume for now it is an observation.
I offer some of my own viewpoint for your consideration. Perhaps it is a different perspective than a moderator might get.

I can't speak for everyone, but, usually by the time I see a post on the Facebook group there are already dozens of comments saying anything I would have said. I have thrown my hat into the ring a couple times both here and on Facebook when there was unwarranted criticism against Flite Test and there was something to say that had not already been said. I try not to beat a dead horse but it does happen.

I have also stepped in on the rare occasions when someone has commented a valid criticism or concern regarding FT and were seemingly dismissed just the same as someone who had insulted the FT crew.
It's easy to start writing off every negative comment as the ramblings of a selfish individual or a generally unhappy person. And maybe that's all some of them are. But, I do think it is worthwhile for us as a community to try and find the root of that complaint, to see if there is a valid concern, and to respond accordingly.
After all, isn't that part of what makes the FT community so different; the desire to meet people at a personal level and connect with them together?


For what it's worth, I fully support the new policy on plans and look forward to seeing how it will shape the community and in turn be shaped by the community.

 

[Incader]

Aren’t the past-current plans going to still be free?

 

[Tench745]

Aren’t the past-current plans going to still be free?

Yes, all the past plans which were available for free are still available for free.