Klima Motors

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Joerg said:
Hello ,

I don't know if the Klima motors will ever be available in the US, but this composite motors are really much more better than the old Weco bp-stuff. They are also less expensive ( in Germany :cool: ) and more powerful than Estes Motors.
For those who are interested-> Robert Klima rocket motor primer https://www.neu.raketenmodellbau-klima.de/Download_Dateien/Motorflyer_DINA4.pdf

Greetings, Joerg
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Cl(VII) said:
I contacted Klima directly. I was told they are already so busy keeping up with the European market that they are not seeking a market expansion.

Bummer, but good for them.
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Tanarin said:
I'm sure if enough money/interest was shown by the US community, they would change their mind. Letters like what you sent help in showing that. Even if it is just a way for us to import them legally and have them NAR certified, that would open up a bunch of options

(Yes, I realize private importing would likely be impossible, but one can wish.)
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JohnCoker said:
They should be listed in ThrustCurve.org if they are certified and regularly available, even if not in the U.S.
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Klima make good motors, but I doubt there is enough of a market in the US to justify the investment required to distribute them in America. The C2 and D3 motors are strictly competition motors. The average American model rocket builder doesn't build light enough to get good flights from these low thrust long-burn motors. Apogee made a similar line of 13 mm and 18 mm A-D motors in the past and they did not sell enough of them to justify continued production, but they still make 24 mm and 29 mm mid-power variants. https://www.apogeerockets.com/Rocket_Motors/Apogee_Medalist

The only way you might see these motors being imported would be for Klima to partner with a small special interest American company like Apogee. The market and added revenue is too small for Klima to justify an effort to invest their limited funds to increase production capacity to a level that would interesting to the big hobby players. Apogee is already in the small hobby market and markets similar 24 mm and 29 mm motors so the marketing and distribution costs would be minimal. It would be a good match for a test market. So folks if you want them here in the US, try lobbying the idea to Klima and Apogee.

Bob
 
The C2 and the D3 are mainly designed for rocket propelled gliders, which have a quite long tradition in Germany.
There was a motor in Germany called Held 1000 (designed in the 60ths ) which had 1.25N and 5s burn time. The C2 is intended as a replacement.
 
Tanarin said:
I am very curious about the special igniter they use for multistaging. Plus 6 second burn time sounds like a lot of fun.
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The combination of the igniter sticks and tape match they make is awesome for clusters. Super-reliable and only requires one conventional igniter so no messing around with complex launch controllers.
 
bobkrech said:
Klima make good motors, but I doubt there is enough of a market in the US to justify the investment required to distribute them in America.
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I don't know, but it seems like there's plenty of interest. Most people don't seem to know about them, but virtually everybody who learns they exist says "Ooh, I'd like to get my hands on those!" There may not appear to be a market now, but that's only, I think, because they have not been promoted.
 
jqavins said:
I don't know, but it seems like there's plenty of interest. Most people don't seem to know about them, but virtually everybody who learns they exist says "Ooh, I'd like to get my hands on those!" There may not appear to be a market now, but that's only, I think, because they have not been promoted.
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Let's do the math. The retail price of a Klima motor in Europe is about $3.50 US per motor and they are sold in packages of 6 motors for ~$21 US. Maybe a US niche market would support a higher price but this is uncertain. You can ship 30 packages of motors in a 12"x6"x6" box that weighs ~13 pounds and contain a retail value of ~$630 US. 4 boxes containing 720 motors in 120 packages of 6 motors will occupy 1 cubic foot and weigh ~52 pounds and have retail value of $2520 US. There are 17 variants of the motors so to have a reasonable US inventory supply of the motors you would likely several boxes of each. For practical purposes you would have to order a pallet of motors. A nominal 1 meter square pallet would hold a minimum of 27 cubic feet or 108 of the 6"x6"x12" boxes. So your order would consist of 19440 motors in 3240 6-packs in 108 boxes on a pallet weighing ~1500 pounds with a retail value of $68040 US. The wholesale price of the shipment will be 55%-60% so the importer would have to come up with ~$37000 to $41000 US to pay for the motors, and ~$3000-$4000 for shipping and ~$3000 in customs duties and brokerage fees for an upfront investment cost between $43000 to $48000. Your revenue potential is between $20000 to $25000 for the order, or about $6.20 to $7.70 per package if you sell them in reasonable period of time.

Your costs for operating the business are approximately: 20% warehousing; 20% sales and marketing; 20% overhead, 20% general administration; and if you do well, a 20% gross profit. For most businesses, 50% of you profit goes to taxes so if you are lucky and well managed, your after tax profits are 10%, so you are making $0.62 to $0.77 per 6-pack of motors after absorbing all your costs and expenses, and the net return on the companies inventory investment is between 8.4% to 11.6% pretax, better than a bank account and comparable to the stock market.

The catch is that you have to sell all that you purchase and that rarely happens. Excess inventory costs are high in a small company as it ties up your cash flow and is taxed as company property when it sits around for a year. You can attempt to reduce your warehousing, sale/marketing, advertising and administrative costs to compensate for unsold merchandise, however if you could reduce those cost and sell everything, you would actually increase your profit.

If the market was the TRF active members, each active member would have to purchase 3 packs per year to make it work. I think the market would be not more than 10% of that so the inventory purchase would take about 10 years to sell under this example. Maybe those 10% might purchase 6 to 10 packs a year but even so it would still take 3 years to sell out the initial buy. In the worst case if sales were that low, essentially all of the profits that could be gained from rapid sales could evaporate due to the cost of the unsold inventory, so the motors would be sold off at a discount and essentially written off at a large company. In a small company, they might go out of business because their cash flow would be tied up in unsold inventory and they couldn't buy stuff they could sell.

Klima is a small company. Their limited production capability would not support a large US market, so the big time distributers wouldn't be interested. Additionally there is a warrantee issue here. Unlike our big motor manufacturers, I doubt Klima could support an across the pond warrantee system in a large market so the purchaser would more than likely be on their own.

For these reasons I think that it is unlikely that any big distributor would be willing to pick up the line. The potential sales are just not high enough. A small vendor like Apogee might be able to handle it as they are a niche market supplier that has in the past catered to this market. If you want them in the US, approach Apogee with the idea.

Bob
 
bobkrech said:
Let's do the math.
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Well, that's certainly the way they taught us at Chicago Booth.

and the net return on the companies inventory investment is between 8.4% to 11.6% pretax, better than a bank account and comparable to the stock market.
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You know, when I saw you the other week, you said "I'm not an engineer" yet you talk engineering ALL the time (and speak it well!)

Now you talk MBA. Let me guess you don't have one of those lying around. Or do you???? :wink:
 
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bobkrech said:
Klima is a small company. Their limited production capability would not support a large US market, so the big time distributers wouldn't be interested.
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There's the reason, right there. Robert Klima originally got into the motor production business to fill a gap in the European, particularly German, market because the franchise for importing Estes motors into Europe passed to a different company and Estes motors were no longer available in Germany. (I was there in 2013 when this was becoming a problem. In previous years I had no problem pre-ordering my choice of Estes motors to collect in Germany when I went to one of their big annual flying meetings; in 2013, few types were available, basically the last remaining stock of types which hadn't already run out.) So I'd imagine that Robert Klima can't supply the US market except by cutting supply to the European market, causing the exact problem that he originally set out to solve. :)
 
bobkrech said:
Let's do the math.
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And do the math "we" did. Obviously, you've gone at this in far more detail than I. I haven't checked any of your figures and assumptions, and I'm not about to; I'll accept them as stated, except one.

If the market was the TRF active members, each active member would have to purchase 3 packs per year to make it work. I think the market would be not more than 10% of that..."
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And that's the one. I can't think of a single active TRF member who hasn't reacted enthusiastically, nor a single one of the people I've talked with about these elsewhere.

Klima is a small company. Their limited production capability would not support a large US market...
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That's the real problem. What's needed, I think, is a test run. I will contact Apogee about getting a batch (though Tim is probably sick of hearing from me with product suggestions.) If they sell as I suspect they would with proper promotion then Apogee won't be able to keep them on the shelves. That would be evidence that it is worth increasing production, either by expanding Klima's capacity or starting a second facility, possibly here in North America. Whether or not it would be enough evidence to justify the cost of expansion, I couldn't begin to say.
 
Apogee sold 13mm BP and 13mm and 18 mm Composite competition motors in the 1990's. Here's an ad for them. https://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/catalogs/apogee94/update1.pdf The 1994 list price of the 13 mm B motors were $6, the 18 mm C motors were $6.50, and the 18 mm D motors were $8.50. They are no longer sold, and Apogee is still going strong. I have to assume the US market did not support enough sales to make them profitable.

Klima is a small company. Their motor FAQ might read like Apogee's. https://www.apogeerockets.com/Rocket_Motors/Apogee_Medalist Please note question 1 and the answer. I'm sure Klima's answer is the same. It takes a lot of work to export and import motors, and it is expensive, especially for a very small company. If DOT does not accept the CE testing and requires Klima to perform additional UN characterization testing on their motors, the project is DOA as that would be very costly.

Asssuming that Klima could export to the US, I see the serious NAR competition flier as the principal market for this type of motor, and the last time I checked that market would be no larger than 300 rocket folks with potential annual sales of 5000 motors +/- 100%. At the current $3.50 list price for the Klima motors, I simply do not see a viable US business model. There's not enough meat on the bone. The US retail price would have to be at least twice that or $7+ per motor to stand a chance, and I don't know if Klima has the capacity to supply that many more motors, but at at least with that list price, a vendor like Apogee most likely wouldn't incur a financial loss.

Good luck, or if you have a large fortune start a small motor company and make your own motors. I'm sure you can make a small fortune..... :blush:

Bob
 
GuyNoir said:
Well, that's certainly the way they taught us at Chicago Booth.



You know, when I saw you the other week, you said "I'm not an engineer" yet you talk engineering ALL the time (and speak it well!)

Now you talk MBA. Let me guess you don't have one of those lying around. Or do you???? :wink:
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No MBA. Just 39 years at a small R&D company where as a program manager you are responsible for P/L on your programs so when you write a proposal you have to know your costs, or you'll be looking for another job soon......:blush:

Bob

In any technical endevour, the equations are the same, only the variable names have changed to confuse the unenlightened......:cool:
 
I would say Bob K. is correct with the 'true' market for the Klima motors.

My experience at AeroTech taught me that it was more like 5 in 100 buying a motor 'everyone' wanted.
Of those 5, four would buy only one motor just to try it.
The remaining one person would purchase 3-4 of the motors.

Personally, I would like to buy/fly the Klima motors but it probably would be difficult to import them and have the motors delivered. :(
 
Kinda of a moot point because flying them would invalidate your NAR membership insurance.........correct? As far as I know they're not an NAR approved motor.
 
BigRiJoe said:
Kinda of a moot point because flying them would invalidate your NAR membership insurance.........correct? As far as I know they're not an NAR approved motor.
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I think they could be approved. The motors would have to go through the approval process.
 
Tanarin said:
I'm sure if enough money/interest was shown by the US community, they would change their mind. Letters like what you sent help in showing that. Even if it is just a way for us to import them legally and have them NAR certified, that would open up a bunch of options

(Yes, I realize private importing would likely be impossible, but one can wish.)
Click to expand...

I agree that there should be more choices available to choose from for the rocket enthusiasts here in the United States and the Klima motors should be available for purchase within the United States.
 
rocketaholic said:
I agree that there should be more choices available to choose from for the rocket enthusiasts here in the United States and the Klima motors should be available for purchase within the United States.
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Bob Krech does a good job of explaining why they wont be available here as regular item anytime soon in posts #70 and #71. We hope it changes, but not likely.
 
Available across Europe. The 18mm D is a great motor, AP based not BP :)

18mm Minie Magg down scale, flies on D9-3 just great.

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cwbullet said:
I really wish we had more variety in the US.
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You are only missing the Klima (which to be fair I can understand is a pain), for our sins in the UK we have to do without any 24mm single use beyond D :( Reloads are daft money and AeroTech 18 & 24 is like rocking horse droppings :(
 
I would like to see a few lower and higher thrust BP 18 mm motors. It stinks to be niche hobby.
 
One of the UK suppliers had an MSDS for the Klima motors/engines years ago. If it's still there, some of you might be interested in reading it. I'm pretty sure Bob K and Initiator would and it might even point to more problems in bringing them into the U.S. Still fun to think about.

Regards,
Ed
 

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