I guess I am fortunate in living within 1/2 mile of a large hobby
shop - but after an 8-year absence, boy have things changed.
The shop is (was) one of the largest RC aircraft oriented hobby
shops in the area, but they had many things useful to C/L, even
a few Brodak kits. They had hundreds of airplane kits in 2004,
but now just a handful of kits. They have quite a few ARF/RTF
planes, almost all of the electric foamie type.
In 2004, they had the biggest selection of IC engines I had ever
seen, from .049 to big gassers. Now they have a handful of OS
2-stroke, and Saito 4-stroke. They used to have a huge supply
of engine parts - NVAs, needles, backplates, venturis, carbs, etc.
What is left of that, about a dozen pieces, are in a clearance bin.
They seem to be moving to electrics, there is a decent selection of
those.
In 2004, they had an enormous selection of wood; balsa, spruce,
maple, basswood, specialty shaped pieces. Now, they only have
a basic selection of balsa and basswood, half of it out-of-stock,
and what they do have is of questionable quality and often
badly warped. They have no plans to rebuild stocks to their
former levels.
They still have a decent selection of parts, such as DuBro, Sullivan,
SIG, & Hangar 9. But their finishing supplies are a shadow of what
they used to be. No dope, a few cans of LustreKote. They carry
Monokote & Ultracote, but are out of about half the colors they
stock.
About the only plus is they now carry SIG fuel; formerly they only
had Wildcat & Omega.
The only departments which seem to have increased in size and
stock are RC cars/trucks, & RC helicopters.
They used to have a large model rocket section, which has been
reduced to a few feet of shelf space. They discontinued model
railroading completely.
I found out the store has changed ownership 3 times since 2004, the
second owner nearly ran it into bankruptcy even before the economy
tanked.
Going there, I used to have to be careful not to go hog-wild
buying more than I should. Now, going in there is just depressing,
remembering what it *used* to be like.