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We’d like to post a brief update regarding the recent changes at Honeycomb and to clarify a few points of confusion.As many of you will have noted, Honeycomb Aeronautical recently underwent a change of management. You may have noticed our website and social media accounts have begun being updated, much more content will be appearing shortly, and we look forward to growing our presence online in the coming months, and sharing future products and announcements soon.
More importantly, the change in management was in the best of interests of you, our loyal community. We recognized that improvements were needed in several areas of our business, to advance our product pipeline, ensure that product was released in a timely fashion and in answering customer enquires promptly and professionally. We’re working hard to improve all areas of our business and believe you will all notice a huge improvement in a very short timeframe.
We are aware that there is continued confusion as to the ownership and ongoing development of Honeycomb products. This is primarily down to a former employee of Honeycomb Aeronautical, continuing to promote the sale of Honeycomb products, offer the community updates on products and delivery, as well as claiming to be the ‘Founder’ of Honeycomb. In addition, this individual continues to engage in interviews and repeatedly claims that they are imminently poised to take control of the Honeycomb business.
We are so sorry for the continued and very understandable confusion. As you might imagine, for very pertinent legal reasons, we are unable to elaborate too much on this ongoing situation; however, we are absolutely committed to defending our business, our products, our brand and our copyright. With this in mind, we would like our customers to note the following information.
- Since inception, Honeycomb Aeronautical has always been and still is a subsidiary of the snakebyte | GROUP.
- snakebyte | GROUP hired the individual in question in 2013 to manage the company. The company previously operated out of offices based in San Diego.
- The individual in question carried the job title of ‘Founder and CEO’ but has never owned any part of the Honeycomb Aeronautical business, they were an employee of the snakebyte | GROUP until their employment was terminated in October 2023.
- The CEO of snakebyte | GROUP is Mr. Mike Steup, and Mr. Steup has taken over the role of managing the Honeycomb Aeronautical business. There is of course a very full team of employees who continue to work on the brand, with employees based in Germany, USA, Hong Kong and across the EU.
- This individual who claims they are the ‘Founder’ of the business does not own any shares, trademarks, development tools, designs or any other IP of Honeycomb Aeronautical and is not authorized to represent the company.
- We wish it to be known that we are not working in conjunction with this individual or collaborating with they and their team or associates in any way; indeed, we are perusing every avenue including legal proceedings, to politely ask this individual to cease their fraudulent claims that they are connected with our company. We would like to resolve this amicably and wish this individual luck in their future endeavors.
- We would like to note to our customers and community that there is no deal in place or imminent deal in discussion to sell our business in part or in full to the individual in question; any claim otherwise is simply false. Honeycomb Aeronautical is not currently for sale and should the situation change, we will of course update our community. snakebyte | GROUP is the founder and sole owner of the Honeycomb brand with no plans for that to change anytime soon.
- None of our highly skilled engineers, designers or support staff is working with or in collaboration with the individual in question.
Next, we would like to update our customers on the very serious issue of counterfeit product being sold by the individual in question:
- The individual in question is selling Charlie Rudder Pedals via their own ‘Founders’ website. Please note that this is NOT authorized by Honeycomb Aeronautical, and that the product is NOT official Honeycomb Aeronautical product. The website was not designed, sanctioned or hosted by us.
- The small amount of product being sold via this website is counterfeit product which is not manufactured by us or our trusted partner. We would like to point out that this counterfeit product will not be supported by Honeycomb Aeronautical should a repair or replacement be needed in the future.
- The Charlie Rudder Pedals being sold via the individual’s website is based on incomplete and work-in-progress tooling. Our engineers made several mechanical improvements to our official product, to increase the lifetime of the metal wire running the pulley system of the pedals. This improvement was made due to the wire used on our old tooling (and still present on the counterfeit product) being liable to cracking during long term testing (after 40,000 cycles of moving the pedal back and forth). Since our minimum requirement is 500,000 full movement circles, we increased the diameter of the wire and modified the strain release to reduce the pressure on the wire during movement.
- If in doubt, customers can easily identify genuine stock from this counterfeit product. The rear, side of the counterfeit Charlie Rudder Pedals 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.
- The factory used to manufacture the counterfeit product currently being offered has been served with a cease-and-desist.
We 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. For all future updates, please ensure you are visiting the official Honeycomb Aeronautical website http://flyhoneycomb.com and official social media accounts.
If in doubt or should you have further questions, please feel free to email us at: support@flyhoneycomb.com or send us a message via our social media accounts.
Thank you for your continued support and for being part of the Honeycomb Aeronautical community, and we look forward to sharing upcoming announcements and updates very soon!
