For fun, let's try to estimate the TAM. There are 2500 AMA clubs in the US. Judging from the clubs I'm a member of, there's maybe 10 people in each club who are into high-end 3D stuff. So you have 25,000 potential customers. Most of them are flying the small stuff, but let's say the average price of an airframe is 500 bucks. Let's say each potential customer buys two airframes per year.
25,000 * 500 * 2 = 25,000,000.
There may be some people flying on non-chartered clubs and in parks, but these are typically going to be smaller and cheaper stuff, but for good measure, let's ad 50% to this number:
25,000 *1.5 = 37,500,000.
Let's say you have 10 vendors that make what we consider "high-end" planes. (3DHS, EF, Pilot, RedWing, Aeroworks, Carden, Hangar 9, Aeroplus and a few others). For the sake of simplicity, let's say they all split the market evenly. That leaves a $3,750,000 share for each vendor. Furthermore, let's assume you can sell the airframes at a 50% profit margin, which leaves you with $1,875,000 for salaries and overhead.
Now, I admit that this is a very rough estimate, but I'm willing to bet I'm in the right order of magnitude. The proof that I'm reasonably correct in my estimate is right in front of us: If there was an opportunity to become the gorilla of the high-end 3D market, someone would have seized it and made a fortune. That clearly hasn't happened. Noll, Ben, Chris and all the other guys aren't stupid. It's just that this cake isn't big enough to make the vendors fat.
