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Kitty Hawk / Panda Closing


madcat911

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Distribution Distribution Distribution when will they ever learn,  going though a retailer in a country and not a distributor who's mission is to get as many kits into the stores at a reasonable price is how it works.

 

Good Brands poor distribution.

 

Like a poster states who next,

Edited by TIGER HOBBIESLIMITED
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There is a thread on the IPMS workbench also about this, however, whilst it confirms some of the above, due to the companies being Chinese there has been a slight language issue/miscommunication and they are shutting down production due to an overstock of kits rather than completely closing down and going out of business. It simply states more stock than orders so temporarily pausing production to reduce stocking levels.

 

 

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32 minutes ago, TIGER HOBBIESLIMITED said:

Distribution Distribution Distribution when will they ever learn,  going though a retailer in a country and not a distributor who's mission is to get as many kits into the stores at a reasonable price is how it works.

 

Good Brands poor distribution.

 

Like a poster states who next,

That would be me! 🙂

5 minutes ago, treker_ed said:

There is a thread on the IPMS workbench also about this, however, whilst it confirms some of the above, due to the companies being Chinese there has been a slight language issue/miscommunication and they are shutting down production due to an overstock of kits rather than completely closing down and going out of business. It simply states more stock than orders so temporarily pausing production to reduce stocking levels.

 

 

I hope this is the case!😐

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I contacted Sophia Lynm asking about the closing down. This is her reply:

 

"Hi Danie

 

This is the Boss Song's decicion, We will  sell the complete stock before the company is definetely closed. You can order some earlier, some kits may have low inventory."

 

 

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Funnily enough yesteday I ordered a Kitty Hawk Sukhoi Su-17 M3/M4 and about ten minutes later that news broke 😕


Are there any KH kits anyone would recommend picking up whilst it's still possible to get hold of them? 

 

 

 

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Probably one of their Black/Seahawks then.

Despite their reputation, those appear to be quite good overall with some obvious mistakes (rotor head inverted) in place.
Still torn whether to check for a SH-2F or G here.

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2 hours ago, TIGER HOBBIESLIMITED said:

Distribution Distribution Distribution when will they ever learn,  going though a retailer in a country and not a distributor who's mission is to get as many kits into the stores at a reasonable price is how it works.

 

Good Brands poor distribution.

 

Like a poster states who next,

I was speaking to a UK retailer about this - they said that Amarang (sp?) killed the sales of Hasegawa in the UK by adding more and more markup every year. UK retailers couldn't compete with the Far East without heavily discounting and making 0 profit. Customers kept coming to them saying "but I can get it from HLJ for far less even with shipping". Hearing similar stories about Trumpeter from elsewhere.

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Yes you need the right type of Distributors, there are some good ones in the UK who are not greedy and some that are Greedy Piggy's or could not distribute themselves out of a paper bag.

 

Not blowing our own trumpet but, all the distributors buy at the same price ( may be a discount for buying in bigger numbers), so we try to keep the UK RRP same as the USA and Far East, if you take off the UK Vat at 20% 

 

If you buy our products generally from overseas what we import, you generally save sod all after shipping and importing cost, ours comes a little late but are just as cheap.

Edited by TIGER HOBBIESLIMITED
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Right type of distributors are as rare as water in a desert, numerous known Far Eastern brands vanished from shops throughout EU due to overhead in some cases reaching 60% , a certain Western European official distributor to app.5 EU countries of a highly known Japanese brand, adds 50% before taxation.

 

 

 

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Contact with my Local shop Aviation Megastore learned that they still have shipment coming in. If these are last stocks from suppliers or regular deliveries is not clear though. I know they have 3 different lines of supply 

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2 hours ago, AdamT87 said:

Funnily enough yesteday I ordered a Kitty Hawk Sukhoi Su-17 M3/M4 and about ten minutes later that news broke

OK, we're blaming you! :frantic:

 

Seriously though, I'm sad to see them go.  They did have their issues with some simple mistakes in instructions and decal sheets mostly, but they were acxtively filling gaps in the marketplace that a lot of us wanted.  They also suffered from a lot of "chicom" bias from some quarters, and there were more than a few people that would go out of their way to rubbish their products.  We've seen people join specifically to do that, and stomp off in a huff when we don't let them say downright nasty things about a company that's never done them any harm :mental:

 

I hope things work out well for them, and until we know that they are categorically and absolutely 100% shutting down, I'm not going to engage in any speculation, as it's just a waste of electrons. :)

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4 hours ago, IT_Man said:

I was speaking to a UK retailer about this - they said that Amarang (sp?) killed the sales of Hasegawa in the UK by adding more and more markup every year. UK retailers couldn't compete with the Far East without heavily discounting and making 0 profit. Customers kept coming to them saying "but I can get it from HLJ for far less even with shipping". Hearing similar stories about Trumpeter from elsewhere.

 

Happened in Italy too, basically if I ever go to the two remaining hobby shops in Cagliari, one has lots of Warhammer, Gundam and die cast stuff leftovers from unknown eras, the other one is mostly selling only Italeri and Revell kits, he can bring Academy kits if you want, it will take ages as per usual but if you are after anything particular you only option is to buy it from online stores.For my other hobby aka figure collecting is pretty much the same stores only have Gundam and common WSJ stuff I don't care about, if I order from Star Shop they will just buy used goods from stores I'm already purchasing stuff and then triple its price.

 

Luigi

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22 hours ago, dragonlanceHR said:

Seeing their Cougars, yeah, it's bad.

I actually like their Cougs. The multi part breakdown to allow multiple versions was a bit of a pain but overall the shape is correct. Other kit makers have done the same. The rest is easily workable. To me crummy decals are not an issue either. People have complained about Tamiya and Hasegawa decals all the time and for years. In fact there aren't too many kit decals that are really worth a crap to begin with. Now with so many different decal printers most people replace the kit decals anyway. Same with resin and PE sets. 

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2 hours ago, Mike said:

They also suffered from a lot of "chicom" bias from some quarters, and there were more than a few people that would go out of their way to rubbish their products.

That's what puzzles me too. I've read the comments on their closing post on Facebook yesterday and was shocked that some people cheered on the fact that they were going out of business, claiming they deserved it for the **** they released and belittled the modellers who liked their kits and may pick up the remaining stock (... the ones easily pleased).

I cannot understand how one can take certain faults in their kits that personal to spew so much vitriol at them. The dark side of social media I guess :fraidnot:

 

Personally, I'm really sad to see them go. Even with their faults they did some interesting subjects. I've bought quite a few kits from them even though I knew their issues (I'm easily pleased I guess :D). And what all those haters don't seem to understand is that the existence of Kitty Hawk and their subject choice may inspire some manufacturers to release some more exotic items, or it may spark the creation of a new manufacturer at all.

A good example is Trumpeter. They started releasing new tool kits in 1/32 when this scale was basically dead and only vintage kits available. Then came Trumpeter and sparked a revival by flooding the marked with state-of-the-art kits and while they had their faults too it showed other manufacturers that there was potential in new 1/32 kits. I'm sure, not one of the more recent large scale kits which exist today from Tamiya, Hasegawa, MDC, HKM or Kitty Hawk would exist if Trumpeter would not have taken the risk to do something different many years ago.

 

So every kit company leaving the scene is a big loss as you never know if they inspire someone else to release your pet subject.

 

Cheers

Markus

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Kitty Hawk had their last message on Facebook at the end of December and since we have no news, I was waiting for their Su-25 and Ka-52, I hope the manufacturer has advanced the development of thosez kits and resells their mold to another maker. It was not a very good idea to put all the energy on the 1/32, Ok their SeaHawk looks perfect to me but I don't think this product sells as well as the 1/48 subjects. I personally have all their Sukhoi family.

 

It is a very sad news.

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46 minutes ago, Shorty84 said:

I cannot understand how one can take certain faults in their kits that personal to spew so much vitriol at them. The dark side of social media I guess :fraidnot:

 

Unfortunately, we have a lot of people who are completely unaware of the realities of the model industry, but think they know best and are ready to criticise manufacturers at any cost, regardless of the scale of the problem.

 

Of course, they do not take into account issues of profitability, design time, legal problems and so on. Nor do they take into account the fact that for 95% of modellers a particular model is good enough.

 

It is interesting that often the same person will criticise one company very strongly for a minimal and unnoticeable error, but will forgive another company even for a mix-up of versions or considerable dimensional errors.

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4 hours ago, Mike said:

We've seen people join specifically to do that, and stomp off in a huff when we don't let them say downright nasty things about a company that's never done them any harm :mental:

 how and where do they think their computers & phones are built they use to fill the air with noisy bits & bytes? :P

 

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I was quite sad to hear the news. 

I've built a handful of their kits, the Voodoo and Etendard to name two and have their super sea sprite in the stash, I went out and ordered their Mirage 2000D today as its been on my maybe list but went straight up to the top of the must have pile after the news. Otherwise I may never get one.

Kit prices will jump on ebay soon like wingnuts did when they had the same issue. 

 

The kits have their issues and I will go out and buy aftermarket decals for all their kits

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9 hours ago, Robert said:

Kittyhawk kits have been pulled from Hannants web site.

 

Regards

Robert

 

They are all back on hannants now but under limited availability.

 

My advise now guys, if you have some disposable income and was thinking about a kitty hawk kit, get it now before they all go  

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3 minutes ago, thepureness said:

I was quite sad to hear the news. 

I've built a handful of their kits, the Voodoo and Etendard to name two and have their super sea sprite in the stash, I went out and ordered their Mirage 2000D today as its been on my maybe list but went straight up to the top of the must have pile after the news. Otherwise I may never get one.

Kit prices will jump on ebay soon like wingnuts did when they had the same issue. 

 

The kits have their issues and I will go out and buy aftermarket decals for all their kits

Like me I bought Caracal decals for the KH FJ-2 Fury and will do the same when they release them for the -3 which will be soon. Not only because their decals were bad but also because I wanted to do different markings than what was in the kit. I will also be picking up Furball's decals for the F2H Banshee as well. Call me nuts but I really like the KH Banshee. Michael Rieth's correction set correct most of the kit's faults.

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6 hours ago, jpk said:

I actually like their Cougs. The multi part breakdown to allow multiple versions was a bit of a pain but overall the shape is correct. Other kit makers have done the same. The rest is easily workable. 

 I also like their Cougars. And the Starfire. And the first really good Su-27/22 in 1/48. Also the helis. Ok, the MiG-25 was abysmal and the Mirages were a huge disappointment. Fury was promising. Oh well, it's not like they planned a new Bucc or something like that... I'll survive and so will the molds.

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Any sane, smart adult person among modelers fraternity should feel sorrow for demise of Kitty Hawk and Panda or any other plastic models manufacturer because that has negative impact to this hobby in general. 

Edited by Zacharias
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22 minutes ago, dragonlanceHR said:

 I also like their Cougars. And the Starfire. And the first really good Su-27/22 in 1/48. Also the helis. Ok, the MiG-25 was abysmal and the Mirages were a huge disappointment. Fury was promising. Oh well, it's not like they planned a new Bucc or something like that... I'll survive and so will the molds.

How about the 1/32 mirage 2000?

i’ve been thinking about picking up one of those and the twin engine huey before they disappear

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