[MOC] F14A Tomcat

[Mysh]

19 hours ago, BusterHaus said:

Do you understand how a business works? Prices are not pulled out of thin air. Labor, materials and operating expenses get added up, a profit margin is applied, and you end up with a price.

Affordability is completely separate from the cost of manufacturing. It is only a factor in the amount of potential sales. 

If you or others cannot afford to pay this price, move along. There is no need to disparage what Jeroen is doing. Do you walk into Lamborghini dealerships and declare that "this is highway robbery and a ripoff"? 

Thank you for your reply, but please do not see this as a matter of whether I can afford it or not. The profit margin in my mere opinion exceeds, what I consider acceptable. We live in a free world, and as MOC creators have the rights to charge anything they want for their creations, so can its audience openly express their moral opinions.

Some people may think reasonable for example that football players may earn $350mio these days, because the market pays for it. At the same time people die around the world of hunger and disease and nobody gives a damn. I don't think its right and hence I stopped supporting football - despite a part of me loving it.

In this regard projecting to $200k profit from 1 Lego MOC sold in 200 unique pieces which are distributed to a narrow elite of buyers seems not right in my book.

If @Jeroen Ottens says that a large part of his marvelous work goes to eugenics, or charity, then his cause is just and honorable and would be happy to support by buying one.

[BusterHaus]

2 hours ago, Mysh said:

Thank you for your reply, but please do not see this as a matter of whether I can afford it or not. The profit margin in my mere opinion exceeds, what I consider acceptable. We live in a free world, and as MOC creators have the rights to charge anything they want for their creations, so can its audience openly express their moral opinions.

Some people may think reasonable for example that football players may earn $350mio these days, because the market pays for it. At the same time people die around the world of hunger and disease and nobody gives a damn. I don't think its right and hence I stopped supporting football - despite a part of me loving it.

In this regard projecting to $200k profit from 1 Lego MOC sold in 200 unique pieces which are distributed to a narrow elite of buyers seems not right in my book.

If @Jeroen Ottens says that a large part of his marvelous work goes to eugenics, or charity, then his cause is just and honorable and would be happy to support by buying one.

• Affordability of this MOC is a factor.  If it wasn't, there would be zero discussion about price and/or profits.  This is not whether you or I can afford it, it's whether there is a market for such a project.
   
• You make a very good point about voting with your wallet.  This is the best reaction to something you feel is overpriced.
   
• Nobody is in a position to dictate to Jeroen how much profit he should make, what price he should charge, how he should spend his profits, or what philanthropic work he should do with the profits.

If you wish to continue this discussion I propose taking it to a private messages, I would be happy to exchange ideas there instead of derailing this topic.

[Mysh]

@BusterHaus I agree with all points you've made.

I also agree with you about taking the discussion elsewhere.

Thank you

[Jeroen Ottens]

Hi,

It has been a bit hectic, but at last I was able to shoot a video. It doesn't showcase the electric functions, I'll shoot them separately.

Thank you all for the comments and compliments. And thank you Jim for frontpaging.

 

On 20/11/2017 at 7:42 PM, AFOLegofan66 said:

I want to build this MOC and would pay some good money for plans. I'm sure I have all the parts necessary to build this. I hope you plan to sell the building instructions in the near future. Let me know if you do!!

I am sorry, but I will ony sell this as a set. It wouldn't be fair to my existing customers to start selling instructions now.

On 21/11/2017 at 8:24 PM, JamesJT said:

Wow, that is a very impressive model. I look forward to seeing a video of the functions.

Have you considered any IP infringement issues? 

On 22/11/2017 at 7:02 AM, Blakbird said:

The F-14 came out in 1972 and has been retired since 2006 so he should be good.

I haven't really considered this, but like Blakbird says, it should not be a big issue.

 

On 22/11/2017 at 12:11 AM, Bartybum said:

Looking awesome! One question though - have you experimented with different designs for the nose? Looking at some pictures of the real thing it seems like yours’ nose is a bit stubby/blunt.

Ah the nose... That has been quite a headache. I do agree it is a bit too blunt, but I couldn't figure out a better solution so in the end I settled for this.

 

On 23/11/2017 at 4:06 PM, Omikron said:

I know a deja vu feeling when I feel one.

At the first glance I thought I saw it already but then I realized that it is an evolution of the model.

F-14 Tomcat back from 2010

I wanted to double check it and BAM! The piece between the vertical stabilizers and the wing design gave you away! But I'm happy you moved from studded to studless.

Well found. I actually still have this one... I'll see if I can dust it off and make a photo with his younger brother.

 

On 23/11/2017 at 7:09 PM, Lox Lego said:

Hi Nerdsforprez,

Yes, I may have been irrational. And I do agree with your points and would like to provide an apology to the community and Jeroen. It really is not my business regarding the pricing of anything anyone makes, and for that I am sorry. 
The parts for the build are indeed expensive, and you are correct about certain parts that have much more of a price due to how rare it is perceived. I just thought of all the folks that would love to build it, but will never get the chance. But that is perhaps what makes it such a rare set.
This is my fundamental idea of Lego, build and share. That way others can enjoy the build.
I do wish that Jeroen gets a few sales as I know the time and effort to build such a masterpiece is extremely time consuming and hundreds of hours spent.

Thank you, I do appreciate your reaction a lot. I do intend to keep making models for sharing. If this venture turns out well I will be able to spend more time designing more models...

 

On 26/11/2017 at 5:51 PM, Mysh said:

Congratulations to @Jeroen Ottens! This build looks awesome!

But if I may say I second the other opinions expressed above. I do not appreciate the business model, which I consider almost a robbery. Instead of sharing cool ideas and interacting with the community; this is just a rip off. My mere opinion is that eurobricks should have just taken down the page at first place, since the whole post is just a commercial advertisement of an overpriced product. Although, I believe the provocative pricing would prove quite inviting for Lepin and other companies in the end...

Anyway I guess my opinion is not that important, since the exclusive community may feel differently. In this regard, I wish @Jeroen Ottens successful sales and would like to congratulate him on more time for his wonderful build.

 

Thank you for your honesty

@Blakbird I still owe you a photo with something else for scale. It will come, I promise.

Once again, thank you all for your kind and honest comments.

Leg godt,

Jeroen

Edited December 10, 2017 by Jeroen Ottens

[BrickbyBrickTechnic]

Why is there a full minute and a half of your website link and black screen?!

[Jeroen Ottens]

13 minutes ago, BrickbyBrickTechnic said:

Why is there a full minute and a half of your website link and black screen?!

I am sorry, something went wrong when making the video. Do you know whether I can edit this in youtube or do I have to upload a new one?

Thanks for pointing this out, I have uploaded a new version which is OK now I hope.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Jeroen Ottens

[BrickbyBrickTechnic]

1 hour ago, Jeroen Ottens said:

Thanks for pointing this out, I have uploaded a new version which is OK now I hope.

OK, great! Happy to hear that 

It was just annoying to get 2:40 minutes of video in a 4-minute video, but it's fixed now, so I must say great video! And amazing functions!

[Mysh]

The video looks cool. What is jaw and roll? Is it a stirring function?

[AFOLegofan66]

good video...much appreciated...gave me a good perspective of the features!!

[Jeroen Ottens]

Thanks for the comments

6 hours ago, Mysh said:

The video looks cool. What is jaw and roll? Is it a stirring function?

Pitch, jaw and roll are the three rotations a plane can make. Pitch is when the nose goes up and down, jaw is when it rotates like a car (so it stays horizontal and moves to the left or right), roll is when it rolls on it's side. Since planes normally combine jaw and roll when turning I combined these two controls. The vertical controlsurfaces in the two big vertical fins are used for jaw, the rear wings are used for pitch (both moving up and down simutaneously) as well as roll (then they move against each other).

[AkiyamaWataru]

@Jeroen Ottens you are talking about yaw ;) The rotation around the Up-Axis of a craft.

[Rijkvv]

15 hours ago, Jeroen Ottens said:

I am sorry, but I will ony sell this as a set. It wouldn't be fair to my existing customers to start selling instructions now.

(...)

Well found. I actually still have this one... I'll see if I can dust it off and make a photo with his younger brother.

Maybe it's an idea to make instructions of the old version? I'd be interested at the very least.

I can't wait for the second video. It looks very impressive so far. 

[Mysh]

6 hours ago, Jeroen Ottens said:

Thanks for the comments

Pitch, jaw and roll are the three rotations a plane can make. Pitch is when the nose goes up and down, jaw is when it rotates like a car (so it stays horizontal and moves to the left or right), roll is when it rolls on it's side. Since planes normally combine jaw and roll when turning I combined these two controls. The vertical controlsurfaces in the two big vertical fins are used for jaw, the rear wings are used for pitch (both moving up and down simutaneously) as well as roll (then they move against each other).

Thank you for explaining this to me.

[steph77]

Hi Jeroen,

This is a stunning pieces! Great job with it.

If I had to say just one thing, I found a little sad that the inner cockpit controls are driven by some manually rotation command. I understand you have searched for the irreversibility and good locking of the moving parts but I had preferred a control by rods for those one.

Excepted that, 11/10.

+1 is for ejection seats   

[Jeroen Ottens]

2 hours ago, steph77 said:

Hi Jeroen,

This is a stunning pieces! Great job with it.

If I had to say just one thing, I found a little sad that the inner cockpit controls are driven by some manually rotation command. I understand you have searched for the irreversibility and good locking of the moving parts but I had preferred a control by rods for those one.

Excepted that, 11/10.

+1 is for ejection seats   

Thanks

I share the sentiment about the controls not being functionally accurate. In my older (grey) version I used the flexcable system for the joystickcontrols, however this actually worked pretty poorly. The flex you get in these flexcables over 80 cm is so significant that the input of the joystick was lost in the cables. I principally refuse to design something that relies on friction (like push & pull axles), so I would need a long set of beams attached to each other running from the cockpit to the rear to transfer the motion, taking up 2x more space than rotating axles. I have not considered using wires though, maybe that would have been an option (although also these will probably suffer from too much elongation when force is applied).

So yes, it is definitely not functionally accurate, but with the (very) limited space I had to work in this was the only solution I could think of.

[Kevin86]

Any chance you'd take a deposit to secure one while i find a buyer for one of my kidneys?

 

[nerdsforprez]

Not a moderator, but as a follower of this thread im quite done with comments, jokes, etc. About the price.

This has been dealt with already. Jeroen should not have to keep hearing these.....

[Jeroen Ottens]

For those interested, I (finally) posted the second part of the video on Youtube:

 

[Kelkschiz]

Upon seeing this MOC I am hearing Top Gun tunes. Awesome MOC!

[WvG_853]

In case you missed it, Jeroen has decided to make an exceptional gesture during this confinement period and to make the instructions for his fabulous Tomcat available: https://jeroenottens.com/2020/04/24/stayhome/. A big thanks @Jeroen Ottens!