The SAB Goblin Kraken story
First owners receive their helis

And finally: SAB Goblin Kraken is now released officially. The most anticipated helicopter is now ready to go to the new owners. The "launching SAB Goblin Kraken" story got to its end.

Everything to know about Kraken

The story began in early 2018 when Stefano Baiardi and Enrico Bernabei sat down to re-invent the term: RC helicopter. First black prototype was done and introduced to the luckiest ones at the SAB on the Grand Opening Day in Italy on 26th May 2018.

Few days later Tareq Alsaadi published a bit foggy video on Youtube about the early tests. The last video was published about the helicopter in early June. Then silence for 7 months. 

Rchelicopter.hu broke the silence, when we asked SAB to tell us something about the helicopter. We are not sure it was accidental or intentional, but we got informed the helicopter will be presented to the public at Rotor Live 2019 in Germany. Because we weren't told to keep it secret, the announcement went live on the website on 22nd January, this year. This article was read by more than 1000 times in two weeks, the Facebook post has reached about 5000 people. SAB's big bang has arrived.

From this day the events got quicker and quicker. More posts, more details and breadcrumbs got published, but still not enough to know what it is exactly. The RC heli community was excited and starving for knowing more.

Just 2 days before Rotor Live SAB has published the first video where the helicopter could be seen as it is now. Then Tareq has published a video about the helicopter in action.

And the big bang happened again. First pictures were published on Facebook by Markes Hugo from Iffezheim on Friday evening. Next day was the first day of Rotor Live and the public could see the helicopter in real life first time by Dunkan Bossion and Tareq Alsaadi. Both pilots made a really big show.

Until this point everything went really well with no mistakes and no problems. But SAB informed us in January,

and because of the high demand - this date had to change. SAB has set up a date to open pre-order, which was 22nd April. But they made a mistake and all key data got published. Few of the retailers didn't respect SAB rules - they have listed the Kraken on their webshops and opened the pre-order. SAB reacted as quickly as they could and the pre-order got open in the very next morning. 

SAB has made a really bold step, because the short time between pre-order and final release was intentional: controlling the high demand caused by publicity through online and social media and preventing delays. There was 4 weeks between the pre-order date and final release date, exactly twice as long as the planned one.

But SAB made it, and all kits are produced now, few kits left in the shops only, but no waiting list. 

Finally just days before the final release date, which was 2nd of May, SAB had to postpone that again. The reason was some logistic issues to more dealers - not all of them. But to remain correct and fair, SAB instructed all retailers to hold all kits back until 9th of May, today. All customers are receiving their kits at the same time about on this way. Bert Kammerer told the details of this issue in the most recent BKPodcast.

And not to forget SAB Goblin Kraken in virtual edition. AccuRC has released the version 2.0.8 containing the Kraken - among others. On 5th of May all AccuRC owners could fly the new flagship of SAB in the simulator. If you know AccuRC: that heli does not look like a Kraken, that IS the Kraken in virtual format.

The best campaign ever in the RC helicopter industry

If the helicopter wasn't enough to make it successful, this campaign has finished the job extremely well. Getting people excited - perhaps this was the motto. And yes, they could. Everybody was speaking about this helicopter in the last 3-4 months. A little bit sour to other brands, but their - also great - brand new products could not get as much publicity as SAB.

During this period we have published 54 articles about this helicopter. We have got hundreds of photos and many videos as well. We hope we could contribute in the big success of Goblin Kraken. All together, it is a bit sad, this journey ends now, but happy also, because this helicopter is out and available to everyone from now.