Scale Soaring UK

Avoid this company for a very good reason. The owner Fabrizio De Santos advertising as Flyrc on some of the Facebook pages, is selling very poor laser cut kits of scale gliders. None of the kits have been proven and several good modellers have failed to build successfully. Most of the designs he sells are direct copies from Cliff's range, plus other designers such as Chris Williams' Minimoa which was just enlarged to half scale.

It's not that they are just copies, the M02a Minimoa was scaled up to 50% with no thought given to structural integrity. If the model had been built as is it would have quite possibly have been an accident waiting to happen not to mention that the weight would be well over the 25Kg mark. He was approached on several of the models he is producing and asked for photos of the finished models and flying reports. As far as photos are concerned he sent pictures of models that are owned by modellers that had never even heard of him that he had downloaded from various websites. As for flying reports none were offered. He also has a very low opinion of English modellers saying that we don't know how to read plans, especially his! And that we should know how to add structural stability to his plans, I say his plans as he says he is the designer of all that he sells.

He popped up on a group I frequent this evening, posting a Spatz 55 kit.


When asked if the kit was from his plan, drawn by him, there were several replies. Alas, I was busy and didn’t get to read them live. 3 hours later, the posts were removed or I’m blocked*... not sure which. As for the content of the replies... no idea! (Perhaps someone here read them?)

M

* they were also reported to the groups admins flagging the history of the poster and encouraging them to confirm that the poster had the rights to reproduce the kits. Hence the uncertainty of block vs removal.

He has probably blocked you from seeing his posts as he did with me.

Marc,
I saw several posts following the Spatz advert with you querying if the kit was the guy’s own work etc. He came back saying that he had drawn & cut the kit himself, & then said if post not ok then he was happy for it to be deleted.
Admin has apparently deleted the complete thread as it all seems to have disappeared.
Peter

No notifications via FB, so not sure if Marco removed it, or if the op's own morality kicked in. (I recall you get a msg along the lines of "An admin removed a post you reported")

"keep 'em peeled as they used to say!"

M

Yet again another image of a box of burnt wood and a picture a full size glider. And no proof or evidence of the finished model or flying report.

I had been watching this situation develop when I got a phone call from Cliff Evans last week. He told me that this guy in Italy was not only ripping off his designs, but he may be doing the same thing to Old Gliders. I got in touch with them to warn them. Old Gliders send their thanks and they will be vigilante for this guy.
What he is doing is theft, plain and simple.

John