Virgin Antigalactic?

[DynaSoar]

Both Rebar and Deepsky are saying that the hold up with Estes' SS1 is due to licensing issues with Virgin.

Can anyone confirm this and describe the situation accurately?

If this is true, I'm of a mind to start a campaign to remind Virgin that even if they manage to get their decals included in the kit, the user chooses which decals to put on the model. AND they can choose what decals to mail to what company to "thank" them for making it takes extra weeks or months to get their kits.

 

[rstaff3]

Since the award-winning flight configuration (different than the first flights) sported a Virgin logo, I am wondering if they want their logo on the kit. If so maybe minor kit redesign was also required to match that configuration. Or maybe Virgin wants a cut of the action.

I would suspect neither party would divulge the details of the deal? Would they?

 

[DynaSoar]

Originally posted by rstaff3
<Speculation mode on>

Since the award-winning flight configuration (different than the first flights) sported a Virgin logo, I am wondering if they want their logo on the kit. If so maybe minor kit redesign was also required to match that configuration. Or maybe Virgin wants a cut of the action.

I would suspect neither party would divulge the details of the deal? Would they?

</>

Well, they'd better hurry. In a month there's going to be a group of 4th, 5th and 6th graders showing up at Scaled to build Estes SS1s paid for by the Mojave Airport Authority. If there's none there, there's going to be a lot of bad press for someone.

Another vendor told me something about a boat load of them arriving in the US only to be sent back for some reason. I don't doubt their sincerity, but it's an awful long line of communication for things to travel down without getting added to or changed around, including bogus excuses right from the source.

 

[gpoehlein]

I can understand a delay if there is a licensing disagreement between Estes and Virgin. But my question is what happened to the Cosmos Mariner. As far as I can tell, only the SS1 and the CM remain to be released of all the X-Prize rockets. And the CM is the one I've been looking forward to the most. Figures!

Greg

 

[kelltym88]

Well, if they would actually manufacture the kits here in the U.S. there wouldn't be so much "down time" waiting for these kits to travel across the ocean, especially if changes need to be made.