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Alan Head SAS Gliders

I sent an email to Alan Head to ask about the future of SAS foamies as you probably know the Wild Thing, Venom and other models are his designs.

He sent a reply which I have copied below.

Hi Mel

5 years ago I gave a franchise to Nick Robus to manufacture and distribute my EPP kits.
He has other business interests that have to take priority since the kits are too time consuming
to produce, even though he enjoyed it. But there has been a big downturn in modelling activity
over the last few years, and not just in this country.As a consequence I recently purchased most
of his raw stock and am back from retirement and manufacturing again.

I should be enjoying my retirement and minimising the inheritance tax payable when I pop my clogs!!

I am now 78 and unfortunately have to be a full time carer for my wife, which virtually makes me
housebound unless I take her out with me or employ a carer, so I do have to limit my production time.
I plan to keep the WILDTHING 46 available and other kits as and when I have extra time.
At present I have some WILDTHING 60 kits in stock as well, and might do a short run of MAMBAs.
VENOM, TERMINATOR and COBRA kits are the slowest sellers, and I don't have plans to re-introduce
them at present as I do not want to end up with unsold kits when my current stock runs out as the
only way to get the EPP at reasonable (?) prices is to buy several thousand pounds worth at a time!
It is not possible to buy on line at present.
I prefer contact with my customers either by email or 'phone since I like the personal touch and very
much miss the 10 or 12 shows I used to attend each year, but UK manufacturers are now few and far
between which makes it even more difficult to get a display team together since they would get so little
flying during a weekend.

Hope I can be of service to you and even if not,
enjoy your flying and have fun

ALAN HEAD

I asked Alan how much he wanted for a Wild Thing 46 and the larger 60, this was his reply.

If anyone wants to buy one then maybe we can split the postage.

Hi Mel

W46 is £83 plus £12 PF48 delivery (up to 2Kg)
W60 is £93 plus £12 PF48 delivery (up to two Kg)
Any two kits together, subtract the total individual postage and replace with £13 up to 5Kg

Two kits together, total postage is only up by £1, i.e. £13 (up to 5 Kg).

For any additional kits the existing EPP stock would run down too quickly, and short production
runs are also much less efficient time wise to produce.

My problem is that when I run out of EPP, that will probably be the end of SAS kits unless I can
find someone I can GIVE a franchise to manufacture my kits under license, as Nick had for 5 years,
but he found them too time consuming to produce by comparison to his other business interests.
The market being what it is, it would be best suited to someone who had a lot of spare time, or
wanted to supplement his pension.
The main problem is that to buy EPP blocks at a reasonable price (i.e. only 3 times the price it was in 1997
when I brought out the first fully kitted EPP kit in the U.K.) you have to purchase over £2,500 worth at a time
which is a lot for a part time business and requires quite a lot of storage space. Carbon fibre spars have also
more than quadrupled in price,etc.etc.
Not only am I now 78, fortunately I don't need the money, but being a full time carer for my wife, I need to
keep my sanity (many say I have failed miserably) and skiving off into my workshop is the only way I can do it.
I would like to be spending our beneficiaries inheritance and avoid inheritance tax at
the same time, having worked all my life without a break!!!

Enough waffling - it is time I went to bed.

Whatever you do and have fun while you can.

ALAN HEAD