X-15 coming soon

[John Kemker]

For those complaining about Apogee's shipping costs:

I recently purchased a new bumper cover, set of headlamps, set of foglamps, and a grill for my fiancee's Focus. Cost for the parts was just under $200. Shipping alone added another $90 to the overall cost. That's not cheap, but it's what it costs to ship a whole bumper cover.

 

[MikeT]

Shipping has gone thru the roof. It is what it is .

Mike

 

[dlb]

I have mine in hand, arrive this afternoon.
Well packed and in perfect shape.
It's bigger than I expected.



Thanks

 

[AfterBurners]

For those complaining about Apogee's shipping costs:

I recently purchased a new bumper cover, set of headlamps, set of foglamps, and a grill for my fiancee's Focus. Cost for the parts was just under $200. Shipping alone added another $90 to the overall cost. That's not cheap, but it's what it costs to ship a whole bumper cover.

Sounds like you got ripped off.

 

[AfterBurners]

Shipping has gone thru the roof. It is what it is .

Mike

Everything is an option. Just wanted to share with all of you something about shipping. I had friend purchase a 4" fiberglass kit from a well known vendor in So Calif. He paid just over $8 to have it shipped to AZ. Why is that? Why is it some vendors have no issue shipping their items at a reasonable fair price? Gee I wonder why? I agree that some cost have gone up. It's over 50 cents to mail a letter. Thank goodness we have email and online bill pay. Just saying...

 

[Apogee Components]

The biggest influence on shipping costs is the length of the package. So it being 4" in diameter, or made of fiberglass, doesn't have much impact. Long tubes have the largest impact.

But again, what we charge for shipping IS what we pay. We make no profit there. That isn't a guess, it's factually correct on paper.

Shipping costs only act as a deterrent in people buying our products. High shipping costs only hurt us, and other retailers in this space. We would lower them if it didn't mean we were eating those costs ourselves.

 

[burkefj]

Some dealers take a loss on shipping since they have markup, others charge exactly what it costs, some do not add insurance to cover the actual value if they don't think there is risk. A fiberglass kit will probably not get crushed. For my glider kits they are fragile and in a box that is 24x12x4 and weigh 1lb 15 oz, it costs about $12-$13 priority to ship in the US including $50 insurance., if I change it to a larger box for my X-15 kit which is 24x12x6 and 2lb 15 oz it costs $20 including insurance for $150.00. If I was to just increase the height one inch to 7" or go over 3 lb it more than doubles the cost, it's actually cheaper for me to mail two 4" tall boxes priority separately than to tape them together and go over their dimensional limit. This is post office. UPS and fedex are almost always more expensive at these light weights but large boxes, as UPS and fedex dimensional charges are more expensive. Same 24x12x4 1lb 15 oz box to UK or Australia with insurance is $55 or more, I was courted by DHL to see if they could bring me value but the same thing would cost $99 through them, no amount of value they could provide was worth an extra $45 to my customers, they already were balking at $55.

Everything is an option. Just wanted to share with all of you something about shipping. I had friend purchase a 4" fiberglass kit from a well known vendor in So Calif. He paid just over $8 to have it shipped to AZ. Why is that? Why is it some vendors have no issue shipping their items at a reasonable fair price? Gee I wonder why? I agree that some cost have gone up. It's over 50 cents to mail a letter. Thank goodness we have email and online bill pay. Just saying...

 

[AfterBurners]

Some dealers take a loss on shipping since they have markup, others charge exactly what it costs, some do not add insurance to cover the actual value if they don't think there is risk. A fiberglass kit will probably not get crushed. For my glider kits they are fragile and in a box that is 24x12x4 and weigh 1lb 15 oz, it costs about $12-$13 priority to ship in the US including $50 insurance., if I change it to a larger box for my X-15 kit which is 24x12x6 and 2lb 15 oz it costs $20 including insurance for $150.00. If I was to just increase the height one inch to 7" or go over 3 lb it more than doubles the cost, it's actually cheaper for me to mail two 4" tall boxes priority separately than to tape them together and go over their dimensional limit. This is post office. UPS and fedex are almost always more expensive at these light weights but large boxes, as UPS and fedex dimensional charges are more expensive. Same 24x12x4 1lb 15 oz box to UK or Australia with insurance is $55 or more, I was courted by DHL to see if they could bring me value but the same thing would cost $99 through them, no amount of value they could provide was worth an extra $45 to my customers, they already were balking at $55.

Frank your shipping cost are more than reasonable. I wouldn't balk at paying $12-13 for one of your kits or even $20 but I'm talking about paying $12 for a couple nylon parachutes and launch lugs. Something that could easily fit into a small flat rate shipping box for what $6-7 that's my gripe. Btw leave me your link. There's a few kits I'd like to check out. My friend is into RC planes and he said it would be fun to fly one of your rocket planes.

 

[Antares JS]

The biggest influence on shipping costs is the length of the package. So it being 4" in diameter, or made of fiberglass, doesn't have much impact. Long tubes have the largest impact.

But again, what we charge for shipping IS what we pay. We make no profit there. That isn't a guess, it's factually correct on paper.

Shipping costs only act as a deterrent in people buying our products. High shipping costs only hurt us, and other retailers in this space. We would lower them if it didn't mean we were eating those costs ourselves.

I don't know if it's infeasible for you or anything, but one thing that would be really helpful for a lot is if you were to start offering priority shipping in flat-rate boxes. If I'm just buying some Lumadyne tube fasteners, those would easily fit into a small flat rate box. Smaller kits would also fit into the side-loading medium box. Just something to think about.

 

[dpower]

Meanwhile, back to the actual topic of the X-15 kit, I see it's still out of stock. Website had said available 11/2, now it shows no date. I won't be able to build it anytime soon, but I certainly am ready to order one when they're available.

 

[AfterBurners]

I don't know if it's infeasible for you or anything, but one thing that would be really helpful for a lot is if you were to start offering priority shipping in flat-rate boxes. If I'm just buying some Lumadyne tube fasteners, those would easily fit into a small flat rate box. Smaller kits would also fit into the side-loading medium box. Just something to think about.

My thoughts exactly. Like buying a few parachutes and paying $10-14 to ship them when they couldn't weigh that much. I mean some of your bigger kits make sense, but yeah flat-rate boxes would definitely help with some of the smaller items that you sell.

 

[Zbench]

Afterburners, the cost of priority mail has gone up, way up. I use Stamps.com to ship stuff, and the Discounted Rates I get there are $8.05 for a small flat rate box, $13.60 for a medium flat rate and $18.70 for a large flat rate. That is with no additional insurance.

I logged into my Apogee Account and put some rail buttons in the cart, and the reality is the shipping options are staggering. USPS first class is $5.43, Priority $9.38, UPS ground is $12.80 and Fedx ground is $11.56. I don't see any of those prices as gouging to ship something from CO to OH.

For those running small businesses, Stamps.com now has cut rate pricing on UPS. If you have a Stamps.com account, you can ship for the same rate that EBAY and other large businesses get. This is always cheaper than priority mail on larger or heavier packages.

 

[Cl(VII)]

Afterburners, the cost of priority mail has gone up, way up. I use Stamps.com to ship stuff, and the Discounted Rates I get there are $8.05 for a small flat rate box, $13.60 for a medium flat rate and $18.70 for a large flat rate. That is with no additional insurance.

I logged into my Apogee Account and put some rail buttons in the cart, and the reality is the shipping options are staggering. USPS first class is $5.43, Priority $9.38, UPS ground is $12.80 and Fedx ground is $11.56. I don't see any of those prices as gouging to ship something from CO to OH.

For those running small businesses, Stamps.com now has cut rate pricing on UPS. If you have a Stamps.com account, you can ship for the same rate that EBAY and other large businesses get. This is always cheaper than priority mail on larger or heavier packages.

You can also use PayPal to generate shipping labels at the PayPal discount rate even if the transaction wasn't through PayPal.

 

[Scott_650]

Afterburners, the cost of priority mail has gone up, way up. I use Stamps.com to ship stuff, and the Discounted Rates I get there are $8.05 for a small flat rate box, $13.60 for a medium flat rate and $18.70 for a large flat rate. That is with no additional insurance.

I logged into my Apogee Account and put some rail buttons in the cart, and the reality is the shipping options are staggering. USPS first class is $5.43, Priority $9.38, UPS ground is $12.80 and Fedx ground is $11.56. I don't see any of those prices as gouging to ship something from CO to OH.

For those running small businesses, Stamps.com now has cut rate pricing on UPS. If you have a Stamps.com account, you can ship for the same rate that EBAY and other large businesses get. This is always cheaper than priority mail on larger or heavier packages.

You can also use PayPal to generate shipping labels at the PayPal discount rate even if the transaction wasn't through PayPal.

Supply chain management is complex, even for relatively small businesses like hobby rocketry companies. Shipping costs, just one component of SCM, are driven by multiple factors - actual costs of fuel, wages, depreciation (which I know is not strictly a “cost”), materials - then there’s the costs of regulation and compliance (regardless of whether you agree or not companies have to account for regulatory and compliance costs somewhere though it’s not always in SCM costs). And those costs are a big driver in shipping cost increases. Government agencies are using regulations and compliance to incentivize zero or negative “carbon” generation. Add in the now widespread use of telemetry and GPS to not only track en route shipments but to monitor operator behavior and the hour/miles to move cargo go up - again increasing shipping costs to the consumer. Add in that the “floor” for small package transportation (which almost always move as less than carload shipments) is provided by the USPS, a pseudo government agency that doesn’t have to TRULY be concerned about making a profit so the only driver for efficiencies is whether they can browbeat Congress for money to make up shortfalls, adds another layer to deriving per cubic foot shipping costs. The idea that smaller companies are somehow using shipping costs as a profit generator is a bit naive - huge outfits like Amazon have skewed consumer perceptions by including “free” shipping as a feature. It isn’t free, merely built in to the monthly bottom line included in sales, so the consumer perceives they’re getting a good value. If Amazon could truly ship a three pound box for “free” they could also charge a couple bucks to ship your three pound box and make a pure profit - they don’t because they can’t.

Anyway, I hope one of the early recipients of the Apogee X-15 does a build thread soon - I have it narrowed down to buying one or buying a kit for my L2 rocket and I’d like to see an X-15 in progress before I decide

 

[Cl(VII)]

Supply chain management is complex, even for relatively small businesses like hobby rocketry companies. Shipping costs, just one component of SCM, are driven by multiple factors - actual costs of fuel, wages, depreciation (which I know is not strictly a “cost”), materials - then there’s the costs of regulation and compliance (regardless of whether you agree or not companies have to account for regulatory and compliance costs somewhere though it’s not always in SCM costs). And those costs are a big driver in shipping cost increases. Government agencies are using regulations and compliance to incentivize zero or negative “carbon” generation. Add in the now widespread use of telemetry and GPS to not only track en route shipments but to monitor operator behavior and the hour/miles to move cargo go up - again increasing shipping costs to the consumer. Add in that the “floor” for small package transportation (which almost always move as less than carload shipments) is provided by the USPS, a pseudo government agency that doesn’t have to TRULY be concerned about making a profit so the only driver for efficiencies is whether they can browbeat Congress for money to make up shortfalls, adds another layer to deriving per cubic foot shipping costs. The idea that smaller companies are somehow using shipping costs as a profit generator is a bit naive - huge outfits like Amazon have skewed consumer perceptions by including “free” shipping as a feature. It isn’t free, merely built in to the monthly bottom line included in sales, so the consumer perceives they’re getting a good value. If Amazon could truly ship a three pound box for “free” they could also charge a couple bucks to ship your three pound box and make a pure profit - they don’t because they can’t.

Anyway, I hope one of the early recipients of the Apogee X-15 does a build thread soon - I have it narrowed down to buying one or buying a kit for my L2 rocket and I like to see an X-15 in progress before I decide

Yep, there is a lot more to shipping cost than the postage. Probably 90% of the orders I ship go out in the same 4x4x8 box and weigh under 1 lb, so my shipping is as simple as it gets for a vendor. Actual 1st class postage charge tends to be between ~ $3.25-5.25 pending just how heavy and where it is going. I carefully kept track of my actual shipping costs, i.e. materials costs (box, tape, paper, toner, etc.) plus postage for a year, averaged it, and then rounded down a little to get the flat fee of $5.50 that I charge for standard shipping...those "extra costs" with shipping are very real, and add up. I even recycle/reuse packing materials like paper and bubble wrap that come through day job, which isn't going to be true for many vendors, so that is another cost for them. All that was even before the latest round of postage increases, so I am certainly losing overall on shipping. Nothing has made me more appreciative of the actual costs and time associated with shipping than preparing and sending lots of packages out the door. All that to say, when I checked out at Apogee and it came up as $10-something for shipping, my first thought was, "how do they ship it that cheap?"

 

[AfterBurners]

I guess we can all grab our ankles and smile

 

[Zbench]

Only if you are into that sort of thing Afterburners. For the rest of us, I guess we will have to be content with the reality that there is no free lunch and shipping actually costs money.

I guess we can all grab our ankles and smile

 

[AfterBurners]

Only if you are into that sort of thing Afterburners. For the rest of us, I guess we will have to be content with the reality that there is no free lunch and shipping actually costs money.

Everything is an option. I only buy if I can get the best price.

 

[JLP1]

I think shipping like so many other things vary from place to place. I live in Houston the 4th largest city in the country we have only 2 really decent hobby shops in the entire city. When it come to rockets they only carry Estes stuff. The rest of the hobby shops around here carry mostly RC cars and related supplies. On a very good day it takes around 2 hours to drive across this city and on a bad day which most of them are it can take up to 4 hours or longer. So I don't have a lot of choices except to do mail order for 98% of my hobby needs.

Recently I placed and order with Apogee for a couple of chutes, some malar streamers, and rail buttons. Total on the order was $21 plus shipping. I choose priority mail $9.20 with that I got my order in 2 days, full tracking from CO to TX, and a nice small pristine box delivered to my front door. Now the only better service I get is Amazon prime they provide all of the above plus a picture showing where the package was placed upon delivery.

UPS and FedEx are a whole different story, usually the packages look like they rode under the truck, they are torn, dirty, and smashed. I received a kit from LOC and you could see the fork lift tracks on the middle of the box where it had apparently fallen off the pallet was ran oven and then thrown back onto the pallet. Trying to file a consumer claim with them or FedEx it's a nightmare. FedEx can't seem to get addresses right I've had them deliverer to the house beside me, in back of me, and on the other side of the neighborhood not once but many times.

And in almost all instances UPS and FedEx were higher in cost, now some folks swear by them as to being the best and that may be so in their area just not mine. Now here in recent times folks have been complaining about the post office being so slow etc. etc. etc. we just have not seen that here. Our mail and packages have been coming right along no problems. There have been folks on the TV complaining their drugs being late and so fourth but I bet if you dig deeper into it and just not the 10 second bite on the TV you will find there was other reasons why their stuff was late.

Talking about shipping I just got a package from World Models in Hong Kong, from departing Hong Kong thru US customs in LA to US postal service to my front door in Crosby Tx just outside of Houston 8 days $11.00 US.

Oh and I got my X-15 from Apogee in 3 days (ordered after 2pm their time) in a nice pristine undamaged box.

So I think you have to look at shipping and cost with eyes wide open.

Just my .2 cents

 

[Saluki]

How about taking this shipping talk and starting a new thread of its own and let's get back on subject.

 

[AfterBurners]

Someone should do an upscale of the kit. Paint it white and orange.

 

[kuririn]

I'm putting this together now, but no build thread since Apogee has their series of build videos ongoing for this.
Some observations:
1. The most challenging aspect of the build are the vacu-form fairings. Specifically getting them to properly contour to the body tube. I watched video #4 several times and followed it and the instructions religiously, but still the fairings are not cooperating. The front of the fairing flares up and away from the tube so that if you try to push it down the rest of the fairing deforms. I wound up pushing the center down just to get the front flush with the tube. Perhaps my building skills, or lack thereof, are not up to the task. Two tubes of Tamiya contouring putty are on order as we speak.
2. LOTS of nose clay is included.
3. A big, beautiful 30" nylon chute is also included.
4. Two heavy cardboard fairing and fin/wing alignment jigs are included. Makes alignment very easy.
5. The upper and lower rudders are made of laser cut heavy fiberboard with slot and tab assembly.
6. This has an unusual double shock cord attachment method. I've only seen this on some NCR kits.
7. The quick link is supposed to attach to the nose cone eye loop but at full open it's still too narrow to slip on.
Don't want to shave the eye loop for fear of making it even weaker.
8. The plastic on the back end of the fairings is very thin and splits easily. Use short strokes to trim as per the video.
9. The fairings also have to be slotted. Much more difficult than slotting a body tube since you cannot use an angle tool. They do supply a slotting jig, but it's an adventure.
I would expect some first run glitches. I'm sure Apogee will be correcting these very shortly.



Ready for a coat of CWF


No cigar.


Hope this helps you builders.
Laters.

 

[Ulexis]

You might want to consider the LOC way of attaching the nosecone with all the added weight. Food for thought?

 

[kuririn]

You might want to consider the LOC way of attaching the nosecone with all the added weight. Food for thought?

Good idea, since the quick link doesn't fit the eye loop anyway.

 

[AfterBurners]

Good idea, since the quick link doesn't fit the eye loop anyway.

Good idea, since the quick link doesn't fit the eye loop anyway.

Why not just use a one piece shock cord? I could never really understand the reason between a two piece shock cord unless you are using a Kevlar anchor cord and something else like elastic or nylon. For $105 plus whatever you pay for shipping Apogee could have included maybe 12-18 feet of Kevlar. I would also ditch the clay and use BB's with a epoxy mix.

 

[AfterBurners]

Why not just use a one piece shock cord? I could never really understand the reason between a two piece shock cord unless you are using a Kevlar anchor cord and something else like elastic or nylon. For $105 plus whatever you pay for shipping Apogee could have included maybe 12-18 feet of Kevlar. I would also ditch the clay and use BB's with a epoxy mix. Also you could always get a bigger quick link or tie the shock to the nose cone using a slip knot?

 

[kuririn]

Why not just use a one piece shock cord? I could never really understand the reason between a two piece shock cord unless you are using a Kevlar anchor cord and something else like elastic or nylon. For $105 plus whatever you pay for shipping Apogee could have included maybe 12-18 feet of Kevlar. I would also ditch the clay and use BB's with a epoxy mix.

It is actually a long piece of kevlar with a shorter piece of elastic alongside it. Looks like it's supposed to mitigate the shock of the kevlar when it straightens since it has no stretch to it.
As for the clay, since it was provided and measured to the correct weight, I will be using that but locking it in with expanding foam glue.
Overall it really is a nice kit.
But quite challenging!

 

[AfterBurners]

It is actually a long piece of kevlar with a shorter piece of elastic alongside it. Looks like it's supposed to mitigate the shock of the kevlar when it straightens since it has no stretch to it.
As for the clay, since it was provided and measured to the correct weight, I will be using that but locking it in with expanding foam glue.
Overall it really is a nice kit.
But quite challenging!

That's another option using the foam and clay. You do need to lock it in. I probably would not use all the clay because you kind of of have to account for the weight of the foam which should be that much unless you fill all the way to the top.

 

[AfterBurners]

 

[Antares JS]

They just restocked this morning. I managed to snag one this time but there are now only two left.