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ALL NEW F-22 and F-35 1-72 Injected kits ???!


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I have found some very interesting tidbits. There are several unknown (at least to me, but maybe not to Chinese company owners) Chinese model kit companies who are currently offering NEW(?) model kits of the F-22 and F-35, and they are offering those for sale in minimum quantities of several thousands on the web. I have never heard of them before, but they are making a wide range of products, from action figurines to military truck model kits, to airplanes, boats (Kongo Class cruiser seen above), cars and other things.

Shenzhen M-Legend is only one of them, i have found a whole series other unknown injection molding companies showing sprue of various kits as well as CAD drawing. There are too many for me to check those kits.

I don't know about you but... from the look of it, could be one of the molding companies that probably design molds for Trumpeteer, or Hobby Boss, or Kitty Hawk, or AMK, or Kinetic, or Meng, or any of the other Chinese kit companies.

Anyone's heard about them before ?

Maybe Mr. Brad Sinacore or Sio from AMK know about them ? It's a small world after all. Any idea guys ?

My question to Brad, or Sio, or anyone who knows about these is: who are these companies and are they producing anything for Trumpeteer, Hobby Boss, AMK, Kitty Hawk, and so on ? I would also like readers and kit collectors to do a search on this and compare the sprues and part shots for those kits and tell me if anyone can identify who could possibly be the makers of those kits (if piracy is involved), because i don't have enough kits in my personal collection to identify these. So this is a call the modelers who have large kit collections on the forum (as well as to manufacturers).

Just makes me wonder who is doing the research on such or such aircraft also before creating the CAD files. Maybe the research goes from one hand to another, to a sub-contractor specialized in CAD and mold making and then that's how we end up with kits that have many mistakes build-in ?

My personal experience with Chinese companies is that it is not uncommon for a famous Chinese brand (and i am not referring to model kit companies in particular here, but to any kind of manufactured goods in general) to have some other companies make some of their products for them. In other words, even when they have their own in-house manufacturing equipment and injection molding machines, it is not rare that they will sub-contract to anyone who's got the industrial facilities to make some of their products for them, either because it is advantageous for them or because they have rush orders and cannot expand their facilities fast enough and don't want to lose a big order. So i submit to you that based on what i have just found here, when you buy a Trumpeteer or a KH kit (i am just giving a purely fictional example here, because i do not know if they actually do this, but for the sake of the argument, i just use their name here, i could actually use the name of any other companies for this example like Revell, Hasegawa or whoever) you may not actually be buying a Trump or a KH kit, it might be made by, for example, a "Shenzhen m-legend" company or another similar manufacturer whose name is not well known to the public here. Many Revell kits for example were not made in a 'Revell" factory, they were made by another company in Scandinavia who was specialized in making injection molds. So a model kit company name seen on a product's box might just be a registered brand name. The actual company who makes the scale model in some cases might bear no relation to the name you see on the box. Of course i know there are a lot of examples of this (witness the many East-European made 1-48 or 1-32 scale WWII aircraft models short-run kits that were made for US or French based companies and or distributors during the past years. They just print their name on the box but the kits were made by others).

I'd be curious to know how many model kit companies throughout the world actually design all their products in-house, or at least do all the research, 3D CAD, cut the tooling and then inject them in-house. Tooling might not be made in-house, or even injection, in many cases.

So i'd also like to know if the F-22 and F-35 models shown here are made by sub-contractors that make these in China for better known brand names, or if this is just an example of shenzai... There are just so many companies these days making parts or products for such or such big brand name company (in general, not just for model kits) but then sell these things through the backdoor without the direct knowledge of the original client. The internet if awash with things like that. That, or directly pirated products (mold copied from the original CAD data, cut at another facility and produced at yet some other factory).

And then to muddy things up some advertisers often will use different company names on the same web sales platform to sell what seems to be the same product from some seemingly different sources. That can sometime possibly point out to something fishy (i am talking in general, not injected plastic kits specifically, but products in general) or, it is just sellers who are playing with slight difference of sale price. I have seen that too many times with various online businesses.

Edited by Stratospheremodels
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I’m not quite sure that manufacturers will want to say how things are done: this is strategic stuff on which they often don’t want to communicate on.There is a lot of outsourcing in the model kit manufacturing business. Everybody knows about decals printing (Cartograf, etc) but the CAD design and above all tooling and injection are heavily outsourced. Kit producers that have the ressources to design, tool and inject aren’t common at all. Wasan Plastic Model Co probably owns a workshop facility that companies of the the group (Trumpeter, Hobby Boss, etc) use. Vast majority of moulds are tooled in China and the quality is just a matter of how much time and money the kit producers wants to allocate to tooling and tuning. FMK said that the X-47 and F-20 are not tooled by the same company. About design, check out the BraZ Models homepage… they obviously did the design for several Revell, Italeri or Academy projects. The CAD model rendering often look alike because there are a limited number of industrial CAD/CAM software on the market (Pro/Engineer, etc).

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I think atleast the F-22 and maybe F-35 kits were released by Fujimi.

Likely. Fujimi also released a 1/350 IJN Kongo.

Yeah those same CADs were posted years prior when Fujimi released those. People speculated Fujimi outsourced their molds from that company, that is until a certain 1/67 scale F-15E? :rolleyes:/>

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It's a whole lot less interesting with even a modicum of research.

http://m-legend.en.alibaba.com/

It's an Alibaba listing for a Chinese tooling company. The Fujimi kits (and there are a bunch of them) are just their portfolio:

Thie model is customized for our clients, NOT for sale. If you want to develop similar products, we could provide the development and manufacture service for you as long as you send your picture or drawing and any requirements to me. We can provide one-stop-shop service to customers from designing (3D & Prototype), moulds, production, painting & printing, assembling & packing.

(all sic)

Alibaba is a business to business trading platform. If you want someone to tool your product, sew your t-shirts or produce a million paperclips, you'll find a listing for a company that can do it via Alibaba. Particularly in manufacturing and especially in China. In this case, it's for a tooling company that seems to specialize in miniatures/hobby products.

So no, they're not selling some otherwise unavailable kits; you can't just e-mail them and buy 100 F-22s. It's a commercial website to connect with other commercial entities.

It's kind of like stumbling into the Cartograf website - it's kind of interesting, but they won't sell individual sheets, they certainly won't sell you decals they produced for someone else, and unless you're looking to have them produce mass quantities of your own decals, there isn't much for you.

Edited by MoFo
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Still, lets do gather 1000 people and order our dream model. Cut the middle man. hahahahaa

The day the ARC goers can agree on one "dream model", that would be the day. When I was younger the model of my dreams was Cindy Crawford.. :-P

I think the industry should be careful with the outsourcing. Outsourcing mold making or even the molding might be OK, but the design of the kit itself is the thing that most define the manufacturer. Some large corporations might not have their own style or care about having equal quality across the board, but some of the minor manufacturers that make a name for them selves with their attention to detail and clever design would damage their brand if they started to push out mediocre kits.

Also, if you're the little guy, outsourcing means that you lose control of the finished result, or even loses the finished result, as we have seen several examples of. If I were to start my own model making business I would be sure to use either a freelancing CAD designer or hire/partner up with one.

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Still, lets do gather 1000 people and order our dream model. Cut the middle man. hahahahaa

Are you SURE you would want to order Anything in quantity through that B2B plateform. You might get a big surprise... There were several stories of class action suits in preparation against that platform since years. Many companies got burned through it, Paypal ditched them after something like 2-3 years after losing something like a billion dollars, the credit card companies "know" very well about them too... if you know what i mean, and i could go on and on. Basically if you want to play your money andn lose it you could try the casinos as a safer bet. But if you want to try, be my guest, but be aware there are several customer defense websites devoted to the things that have happened to lots of people through that platform and others that belong to them. Think Ebay without any of the rules.

Edited by Stratospheremodels
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Are you SURE you would want to order Anything in quantity through that B2B plateform. You might get a big surprise... There were several stories of class action suits in preparation against that platform since years. Many companies got burned through it, Paypal ditched them after something like 2-3 years after losing something like a billion dollars, the credit card companies "know" very well about them too... if you know what i mean, and i could go on and on. Basically if you want to play your money andn lose it you could try the casinos as a safer bet. But if you want to try, be my guest, but be aware there are several customer defense websites devoted to the things that have happened to lots of people through that platform and others that belong to them. Think Ebay without any of the rules.

Several out a billion transactions and also credit companies know about them... So that means I am very safe.

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I’m not quite sure that manufacturers will want to say how things are done: this is strategic stuff on which they often don’t want to communicate on.There is a lot of outsourcing in the model kit manufacturing business. Everybody knows about decals printing (Cartograf, etc) but the CAD design and above all tooling and injection are heavily outsourced. Kit producers that have the ressources to design, tool and inject aren’t common at all. Wasan Plastic Model Co probably owns a workshop facility that companies of the the group (Trumpeter, Hobby Boss, etc) use. Vast majority of moulds are tooled in China and the quality is just a matter of how much time and money the kit producers wants to allocate to tooling and tuning. FMK said that the X-47 and F-20 are not tooled by the same company. About design, check out the BraZ Models homepage… they obviously did the design for several Revell, Italeri or Academy projects. The CAD model rendering often look alike because there are a limited number of industrial CAD/CAM software on the market (Pro/Engineer, etc).

Hi, there is nothing really strategic about how or where a plastic injected kit model is made, all of that is public knowledge or easily accessible. Same things for many of the products we buy: the computer you are using may be made in China, Malaysia or the Philippines, it's written on it, the location of the factories and tax free zones where they are made are also known. Everyone knows the name of the factory in China that makes Apple computers, or Canon cameras (easy to find). The bigger the company the more things are known (it cannot stay away from public knowledge very long, there are lots of investors who want to know and lots of reporters and tech writers out there. I think the part that i would call strategic is how much they paid for such or such component and how they made their deals with such or such company plus the content of the deal (plus in the case of high tech companies, obviously details of patented inventions, how they make the latest computer chips for example (but even that is in good part public, just do a search of engineering publications and research technical papers and you'll find a lot).

Heljan did a lot of stuff for Revell for many years, and they are an injection company specialized in model trains and accessories.

In any case, we know that several medium to small size companies have their own in-house injection and mold making : Zvezda does, a company from the Czech Republic whose name i forgot also does (they recently showed some pics of test shots being made and there was a photo of their chief mold-maker). That's one of the things i admire, companies that can do all their products from A to Z (the plastic in this case), that allows them to have a consistency and a control over their design and the end result. This is much more difficult to do if you sub-contract everything.

Why do you think Canon and Nikon are having more duds with their cameras and lenses these days ? That's because most of their camera bodies and lenses are now made abroad, not in Japan. They cannot control quality the same way they used to when it was all done in-house (you've maybe heard the mini-scandal of the T5i cameras with "melting" toxic leatherette covers ? (the sub-contracting factory had used bad quality plastic), or some of the expensive Nikon lenses that may have bubbles or particles visible inside the lenses (factory in Thailand)(there is a well known photography writer that had to try 4 or 5 samples of one expensive lens before he got one that did not have those defects).

I just wonder if companies like Tamiya and Hasegawa still use entirely Japanese facilities or all in-house facilities for their products, i would think this was surely the case a few years ago. I don't know if they still hold those values. I hope they do.

Obviously as some readers pointed out, Fujimi now seems to have gone for manufacturing in China, at least for some of its products.

CAD designs don't look alike because there are a limited number of industrial CAD/CAM softwares on the market. They tend to look similar because engineers usually put less efforts into presentation drawings and tend to leave their CAD renderings in default grey color, and underline a few of the components with primary red, blue, yellow colors (sorry, this is not a critique of engineers, it's just that most engineers and 3D drafting technicians are good at what they do: designing, but not so much at giving an attractive appearance to a model or making it look like a work of art. And since they usually work for companies where each person does a very specific job (they are not the ones who design the boxart nor the advertising material, although it seems in recent years model kit companies tend to use more and more those basic grey rendering models as advertising material, on forums and in magazines, which personally i don't like, but in my case since i do everything myself, thus i can't rely on just boring grey drawings to compete, i have to show something a bit nicer, plus like i said i don't like grey. I tend to put more colors, reflections and lighting effects on my renderings because i come from a different background than engineers, plus i think it just looks better that way.

As a matter of fact there are quite a number of industrial softwares out there, it just happens that most manufacturers just go for the best known ones or for the only one they have heard of, or for the one for which most schools are offered training to their future employees, or because the salesman from company so and so called them first.

Personally i do not favor companies that try to own the market for a specific product (softwares in this case), their customer service is usually poor, they think they have a monopoly so they think they can offer poor service or none at all. The company i am with for my software have got exceptionnally good customer service, they go the extra lenght and they are responsive. You can't say the same of every company. Plus it doesn't cost an arm (I have tested and used 5000$ software some years ago that was riddled with bugs, which ended up giving me a whole bunch of unusable models that i had to repair or rebuild with (of all things) a free GNU experimental CAD software, plus the the commercial one that i am currently using.

The company making the 5000$ software never even answered any of my emails when i sent them the collection of bugs i found in their product, along with a whole collection of screen saves of the events. While the one i am using now is constantly expanding their service, have versions that work on several different plateforms and is constantly improving and updating and eliminating any bugs they find. I have used and tested many different CAD softwares since 2011. Every software have its own idiosynchrasies and limitations, i have just settled for the one that allow me to do things the fastest way possible and which also happen to have the best customer service, plus i can build things in a parametric way with it as well :) It may not be as expensive as Solidworks, but then again i don't need to design real aircrafts nor have a build-in catalog of parts for injection molds nor a connection to parts databases online, nor designed to work in large teams and share components design over all the computers in an aircraft company design office, and anyway, those softwares cannot do everything, you usually need a 2nd different type of software and technicians to do CNC paths to cut an injection mold.

Edited by Stratospheremodels
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"How much do they charge for 2 thousand models?

Maybe we can order our very own wish list models from them :)

Let's come together and have them make a 1/48 Mig 1.44 :D I think it will sell more 2,000.... "

Now this is exactly the kind of thing that would get you in trouble or any client who would go to this B2B platform and think they would get what they paid for. I'm talking about what i've learned from direct experience and research about several B2B Chinese platforms, including one that's owned by these same people, as well as experience with various types of manufacturing businesses. Not to mention that most people here have no idea how complicated it already is to get what you want in terms of tooling for a complex, precise injected plastic model kit from a supplier located here in North America or in Europe, let alone over the phone and internet from someone located all the way in China, and over whom you'd have no control and no legal recourse whatsoever if things go sour. It's big money and big gamble. You can often barely trust local sub-contractors, IF you keep watching their back all the time and if you read all the fine print and know as well the things that are not written, so imagine in China where it's the Far West and where the rule of law does not apply (unless you know Very Very well what you are doing and how to fix problems there, which 99.9999 % of the participants on the forum don't). Contracts don't work in China. One day they like you, the next they may dump you for whoever fits their plan and their profit better. Over there you can't do business the same way you do here. Like Erik g said, you should be careful.

Nobody should throw himself naively into such a venture before first having done a lot of homework and inquiries and first: 'testing the waters' on a small scale to find out how it works. I am going to focus on small scale stuff, cheap items here, not on injection tooling or heavy industrial machinery which is a whole different ball game and could cost you both of your arms if you get into this without knowing what you are getting into.

I am not going to make this super-detailed because this would take a lot of time and i could write tens of pages about this, but here's the short version:

The first thing to know is that there are about 4 or 5 branches to this company. Alibaba is the one that deals with businesses, industrial bulk orders and expensive machinery. They have a few other platforms that deal with smaller orders and direct to general public customers, it looks like some sort of Ebay. I won't publicize them here, because i don't want to send people into the trap, but if you see something that looks like some sort of Ebay from China, then you've found one of them. And i say "looks like some sort of Ebay", because, don't let looks fool you, them and Ebay are like night and day.

Both their industrial branch and the general public branch are infamous for having dealers that 50% of the time will not deliver what you paid for, or will deliver sub-quantities or defective products, or products that have missing components. Now as if this was not problem enough, the owners of the B2B platform owners and their staff are corrupt. Like i said, think Ebay without any of the rules.

If you are new and think you are protected by their dispute resolution rules, DON'T. They are there purely to trap more new customers into thinking they are safe and have a recourse in case of trouble. Most of the time, they don't. I will give you a case study, and if you do your homework you will find a lot of those stories online (also, read the feedback comments for the sellers, you will find tons of complaints and unresolved disputes where people lost their money)(a favorite method for a dealer who have lots of customer complaints is to open a new page and start under a new seller name with a clean slate, new customers coming for the 1st time cannot find any of the previous complaints and fall into the trap too. This is how they remain in business unharmed and keep defrauding customers).

There is a way to do business with some of those sales platforms the smart way to minimize losses (i would avoid Alibaba completely because you risk losing a LOT more money than on their other platform that cater to small quantities): If you have a problem, First, you have to be tough as nails and firm (while staying polite and professional), two you have to know the game, three, you have to give them no room for maneuver and deal with the credit card companies directly instead of them if you have a problem. Four, ignore anything the dealers and customer service are telling you. Give them no choice, don't negociate with them, but you must be fast and know the rules: you have only 30 days to make a complaint with the credit card company and fill an affidavit for a fraudulent transaction (if they sent you a defective or ran away with your money and refuse to reimburse), because if you don't react within 30 days to make that complaint to your credit card co., it is too late, you will lose your money. The No.1 mistake you must not make is to listen to the customer service people of that sales platform or to the dealer. They will lie their way into making you feel safe until the 30 day period is expired. Either that or they will just ignore your emails. They might also pretend they were on a national holiday and couldn't answer you in time (there is an awful lot of Chinese national holidays these days, especially when there is a problem with a transaction). Classic example: We will reimburse you, don't worry, can you please send us the article back pls ? (at your own expense, as they usually won't pay to recuperate a defective, or if they do, they will only offer to pay a very minimal amount to cover the shipping (say 10-15% of the amount of shipping ). DON'T fall for it. The moment you send something back and wait for them to receive in the hope they will reimburse you, you will in most cases never see the color of your money again. Not only that, you will also have wasted money to ship the defective item to them for nothing in return.

Now what you MUST do: when you find you have a defective or that they have not sent you what you paid for or you order is short, notify them. If they play the waiting game or ask you to send back the defective but offer no reimbursement Until they get their hands on the defective, immediately fill a report for fraudulent transaction with your credit card company before the expiration period of 30 days. Forget about Paypal, they no longer do business with these people, they lost too much money dealing with all the fraud. And it is just a matter of time before one or more credit card companies will also ditch them (they are already quite aware of the problem, and they are not happy about it). Ask to fill an affidavit for fraudulent transaction, have all the details in hand, date of the transaction, name of the merchant, sales platform, company name, item, cost, everything, and have copies of all the documents and be ready to send them to the card company. I actually had to do this twice due to an unprofessional representative who interfered and caused trouble who managed to screw-up completely the process of my complaint. I had to call another representative and have everything straightened plus had to send the affidavit by fax at the last minute due to the time the previous one made me lose. Also make sure to tell the dealer that you are doing all of the above and tell the dealer that you will NOT send back the item nor fall for any of their proposals because you know the sales platform so and so is corrupt and that their rules are all designed to STALL you and make you go past the 30 days deadline for the credit card complaint. Do NOT listen to anything they tell you, THEY-ARE-LYING. Just process your complaint, and make sure to tell the dealer that he might never be able to open a bank account again once you are through with your complaint. These people are an organized mafia under the guise of a company. Even some of the (good) dealers i have talked to confirm and know this but there is not much they can do about it: The customer service of Alibaba and the company itself are corrupt. If you make the mistake to go through their dispute resolution process, you will lose all or most of your money. This is a company that is not interested to make reimbursements nor to provide good customer service, it is only window dressing to trap customers. The complaint pages for this sales platform allow you to send them information about the deal, what is missing or what was not shipped, you can post pictures and videos as proof (annoyingly they have a limited amount of data you can upload, something like no more than 2 or 3 pictures, or 1 video and a couple pictures. Initially i posted pictures, then i made a video and sent more pictures and found out that each time you upload new material it erases the one sent previously... Their customer service told me they got all my proofs and that i had a good case and that they would process it. Wrong ! Don't fall for it. In fact don't even waste time registering a complaint with them. After their deadline for processing my complaint was over, they sent me a short message to tell me that unfortunately i had not provided data to back up my complaint and thus they had liberated the payment to the dealer. And that's after i sent back defective items to the dealer, under the promise he would reimburse me after receiving the items. In my case i only lost 105$, and then only from that one dealer and only because i went through their resolution process. But never again. I did some research and found out mountains of complaints about this platform, including the several occasions where class action suits nearly got launched (unfortunately the group of persons involved did not go through, but they reported the upcoming action in the news and the stocks of that company dropped markedly at the Chinese stock exchange).

Now i won't go into all the details of all the research i made about various companies and products and all the stuff i learned talking directly to them, but lets just say that for small quantities, there is a way to minimize risks, if you know what you are doing and if you follow a method. You might still experience some small losses but you have to be ready to follow what i wrote above to obtain that kind of result, and to do your homework. There are other things you must do but i won't detail them here.

Anything that involves B2B Chinese sales platforms and 4 figures amounts or above, i would say DON'T, or you will be sorry. Remember, these guys don't even respect their own rules. In fact, there are no rules. There is a reason why most of these companies don't sell on Ebay: because they would get caught very quickly.

Also, and don't be surprised when you see "Free Shipping" on the Chinese platforms or with Chinese dealers on Ebay: the shipping is Already included in the sales price. It's just a way they use to make people think they are getting such a good deal and to go to them instead of buying from a Western source. They all work that way. 50% of the time you are getting a much worse deal than anything you would buy on Ebay from a local seller, because A: you risk losing your money, and B: you risk losing even more to send back a defective. Don't waste your time threatening them with lawsuit after the 30 day deadline, they don't care, they are located in the PRC, they can just ignore anyone. The only thing they will understand is when they will receive enough of an avalanche of affidavits they will eventually get dumped by the credit card companies.

One note, the original owner of Alibaba sold his company a few years ago. Maybe because he smelled what was coming after all the accumulated frauds and he decided to jump off before it was too late. He must have had a sense of humor, calling his company Alibaba...

Consider this short "How-To" post my gift to anyone who didn't know about these things and who might otherwise have fallen into the trap had they not read this first. I already knew in part what i was getting into and i did a lot of research (far more than what i can print here), i also used a system to minimize risks (if you want to seriously deal with Chinese based dealers and companies, contact me privately, i will tell you how to avoid problems in exchange for a consulting fee. There are already agencies offering services like this to keep companies out of trouble, but they are usually dealing with larger size companies and they usually will accompany you on the terrain and deal directly with the sub-contractors, a service which is far from being cheap. I have learned a lot over the past years, if i can save some people lots of money, i will be glad to do that. I know things that lots of companies do not even know about how to fix problems when doing business in China, at least about some key points, which, in most cases, if you have a problem you would have no recourse at all, while i have found solutions that i have learned from experience that can give results. I have first dealt with a company in over China 25 years ago. I have developed my own solutions to problems and have enriched them over the years. What i know is not something that could be used by a multinational or a big size company, they already know these things, they have people on the terrain, my own experience deals with small companies, who often are not aware of the possible traps they can fall into and of problems they could avoid if they knew, because they only see dollar signs and big savings, as most people think that merely by going to China for supply or manufacturing will save them tons of money, just like that. I don't pretend to know everything nor am i a guide to doing business in China, far from that, but what i have learned first hand and the methods i have used i know in my case saved me money and have worked for me.

My best advice for those who want to invest lots of money such as for tooling, you should be ready to go there and STAY for the duration of the project. Or you must have people there on the terrain on a permanent basis. Such projects can't be done over a long distance, at least not without a lot of problems and misunderstanding, you have to SEE what they are doing. Security is another huge issue, with all the new tools there are these days it is so extremely easy to run away with 3D data for a product and make a copy. For a small scale venture things can be done from abroad, depending on the nature and complexity of the venture, but i would say for molds it is too risky if you don't have someone there.

The small example about the small amount i lost is just one lone small deal that went wrong, because i did follow the rules of the B2B plateform, which was a mistake. I learned from it, and updated my methodology following this (even though i was already working by a method that reduces losses. By applying all of my methods at once i am able to reduce losses to 95%). Out of all the deals i made over the years, all except for this one and partially another one did not succeed in my favor (although in the 2nd case that happened many years ago, i got big results from the problem solving method i employed and i actually obtained a good compensation).

In any case, there are some good dealers on the various Chinese sales platforms, some of them are quite honest and will even pay for shipping back defective items, but you have to find them the hard way, you may spend lots of time and perhaps money before you find one you can trust. Often some dealers do things honestly for the first 2 or 3 deals, then you hit a bad deal and you lose money and you figure out that it was not a good choice.

Email: stratospheremodels@yahoo.fr

Website: http://www.picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

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China probably hacked Boeing LMT and got CAD drawings but seriously, shouldn't the exact shapes be classified, as they would be part of the stealth features?

Now that's the weird part... I have seen CAD blueprints for the JSF F-35 prototype out there, you could see Every cross sections inside the aircraft along with their correct shape and structure, and you can even get your hands on them, for a fee. What's weird also is that the guy who was (and maybe still is) selling them have Nothing to do with any of the aerospace manufacturers, he is just a guy who siphons off blueprints at various libraries and have some contacts probably as well, scans everything he can lay his hands on, and sells everything to anyone in the general public for a fee. He is in the US and he does that in the open. It seems that when it is an X-plane, or a prototype that was not used for the final military production model itself, it maybe that the blueprints "somehow" make their way into the public domain (i don't know here, i am just speculating here based on what i saw). Either that or i have watched live someone do a major leak on another forum... The copy he did put online to advertise it (at a low resolution, to give clients an idea of the file they would get at higher resolution) was clear enough for me that if i had wanted, i could have used it to reproduce the outer mold line of the JSF easily. Something to note though, maybe not related to this particular blueprint, the guy boasted publicly about having received visits from Both the FBI and OSI, and he seemed proud of it.

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F-35 and X-35 share little in common. Having X-35 blueprints wouldnt help much for anything really. There are YF-23 blueprints available too, doesnt mean one can make an YF-23 copy. (i wish...)

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F-35 and X-35 share little in common. Having X-35 blueprints wouldnt help much for anything really. There are YF-23 blueprints available too, doesnt mean one can make an YF-23 copy. (i wish...)

Doesn't mean that because it was not the final version for the production aircraft that the stealth data value for the outer envelope was not good nor useable... The YF-23 was quite good, some say better than the YF-22 in terms of LO. I find it rather stupid they let some of those blueprints get in the public area. What's important is not the internal components, it's the outer mold (for building stealth shapes). The rest of the classified stuff are the softwares, the weapons systems, the materials used for such or such components and by what process the components were designed, the coatings, radars, com, and such. But for the LO shape alone all you need is the outer envelope model. With large scale CNC machines mounted on gantry you can carve large blocks of hard foam, make composite molds, make copies (that's how Scaled Composites builds spaceplanes and mother-planes these days, and all the sections are assembled with pre-preg tape. It's old technology already, it came from racing sail-boat technology and percolated into aerospace many years ago). It's extremely easy to do these things once you have cross sections and build an outer envelope 3D model. And even if the X-35 shape was not perfected yet, that's where LM started and someone else could refine it too. Anyway... there is already an FC-31 out there.

Edited by Stratospheremodels
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