Update: We have a new statement and supportive documentation direct fro Nicki Repenning. You can read it here.
A new post on the FlyHoneycomb.com website has been posted, giving a sense of confusion to the flight simulation community over the management of the organisation. Not only that, but the post suggests that there are “counterfeit” Charlie Rudder Pedals out there from another source.
To start, it is worthwhile giving context to this matter, Honeycomb Aeronautical, a hardware manufacturer for flight simulation, has for a long time now been in an uncertain state of affairs. The company at the time was led by Nicki Repenning, with the title of ‘CEO and Founder’ of the company. For years, Honeycomb was a trusted brand thanks to its excellent Alpha Yoke and follow-up Bravo Throttle unit. However, in January of this year, things took a turn when it was confirmed that there were troubles with ownership within the organisation.
The situation took further twists and turns during the following weeks when company Snakebyte took control of the shop, domain name, and support. This is currently done through the FlyHoneycomb.com website. Aerosoft confirmed that the Charlie Rudder Pedals would enter production with them reaching customers in August.
Nicki also attended FSExpo, where he was giving away the pedals, adding to our confusion as to who was running what.
We spoke to Nicki during the event to seek some clarity. He explained how he was waiting to sign some final documents to get the rights of Honeycomb Aeronautical, including all brands and products. During this conversation, he said that it was just a matter of waiting for everything to be finalised. What was confusing, however, was how there was now a new website describing itself as the ‘Founders Website’, where people could buy Charlie Rudder Pedals. This website is HoneycombSim.com. You can watch an interview he did with NovaWing24 where he spoke about much of this.
When we asked Nikki about this, he told us that this stock was from another factory, was ready to ship, and wanted to make sure customers who pre-ordered stock would receive it. This was despite the fact that the two websites have nothing to do with each other.
With shipments now reaching customers, it appears the community are now more confused than ever, as the original FlyHoneycomb.com website has made a lengthy public statement on the situation.
The New Statement from FlyHoneycomb
A new statement from FlyHoneycomb.com has appeared clarifying that this website is the only official location to buy Honeycomb Aeronautical products. It contains a lot of information, but there is a lot to learn about the developing situation.
The statement never directly names anyone, but in the Management Update post, snakebyte | GROUP (Snakebye from here) claim that the “individual in question” used the title of ‘Founder and CEO’, but never owned any part of the business. Snakebyte claims that the person they’re referring to was just an employee of Snakebyte, until their contract was terminated in October 2023.
Furthermore, the individual in question does not own any shares, trademarks, development tools, designs, or any other IP associated with Honeycomb Aeronautical.
The statement also clarifies that Honeycomb Aeronautical had always been and still is a subsidiary of Snakebyte, with the CEO of the group now taking over the management role of Honeycomb Aeronautical. It even goes on to say that Snakebyte, or any of their staff, is not working in any capacity with the individual or their team, which goes against what was stated on the record to us during FlightSimExpo. It was also clarified that there is no deal in place or imminent deal in discussion to sell the business.
Counterfeit Charlie Pedals
This moves us onto the Charlie Pedals, which Snakebyte are saying are counterfeits. They said in their statement that the so-called ‘Founders Website’ is not associated with Honeycomb Aeronautical and that the Charlie Rudder Pedals being sold there are not official products. They say that the products being sold there are counterfeit products and not manufactured by them or their partners. As such, Honeycomb Aeronautical will not provide support, repair or replacement for these products.
Snakebyte contained by adding that the product being sold by the ‘Founders Site’ is based on “incomplete and work-in-progress” tooling. Their own team of engineers made various improvements to the official product to increase the lifetime of the metal wire running the pulley system. According to the statement, the alleged counterfeit ones will last roughly 40,000 cycles, which fell short of Snakebyte’s 500,000 full movement minimum – hence the change of wiring.
It’s worth noting that when we spoke to Nicki during FlightSimExpo 2024, he said he/his team would be doing repairs and customer service for products bought on the ‘Founders Site’.
In order to see which is the product from the ‘Founders Site’ versus the product from the authentic Honeycomb website, they said there “is slightly different with a ‘glossy’ section in the middle, and the Serial Number contains a factory identifier, which at the time of writing reads “SA” on the authentic product and “RY” on the unauthorized product.”
Because of this, the factory currently making these Charlie Rudder Pedals has been served a cease-and-desist, with Snakebyte taking legal action to prevent further being made and the other website being shut down.
Snakebyte concludes its statement by saying they “find it deeply regrettable that the individual in question continues to misrepresent themselves to the community and again, we are taking all possible steps to rectify the situation.”
We have reached out to Nicki for comment on the situation and we will update this should anything be said.
Edited slightly with some clarifications and grammar fixes.
