What happened to all the Top Flite Kits at Tower Hobbies?
06-26-2018, 05:56 PM
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What happened to all the Top Flite Kits at Tower Hobbies?
I haven’t been on Tower Hobbies website in a while and Top Flits kits are almost completely gone.
06-27-2018, 03:45 AM
#2
The answer is ARF's. A very small percentage of hobbyist truly build anymore, so I guess Horizon Hobbies decided to NOT keep in stock what doesn't sell. If you didn't know, Horizon Hobbies bought Hobbico, Tower's Parent company. If you ever noticed, HH never really had true kits to build. Just ARF's. It doesn't make sense to keep inventory that rarely sells. Builder's kits are going away just as glow engines are going away. Technology moves forward.
06-28-2018, 04:43 AM
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In the sale of Hobbico, Horizon did not buy, Top Flight, Dynaflight, Goldberg, and so far, no one else has either. So those brands and products are virtually gone after stock runs out
07-03-2018, 04:20 PM
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The answer is ARF's. A very small percentage of hobbyist truly build anymore, so I guess Horizon Hobbies decided to NOT keep in stock what doesn't sell. If you didn't know, Horizon Hobbies bought Hobbico, Tower's Parent company. If you ever noticed, HH never really had true kits to build. Just ARF's. It doesn't make sense to keep inventory that rarely sells. Builder's kits are going away just as glow engines are going away. Technology moves forward.
Last edited by JCOKEEFE; 07-04-2018 at 04:04 PM.
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049flyer (06-20-2023)
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Tom Nied (10-03-2020)
07-05-2018, 07:14 AM
#10
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Agreed. ARFs are perfectly good flying planes. Not quite as good as a well built kit, but there is nothing wrong with them. They are popular because people want to spend their time flying instead of building. And there is nothing wrong with that.
07-24-2018, 05:47 AM
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We are witnessing the slow DEATH of the hobby thanks to ARFS. Where I live, in the 80`s our club had over 500 members, today less than 120 and most are not active. Soon we will be losing our flying field as the city see there are not enough members to justify the land use.
07-24-2018, 07:08 PM
#12
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Oh please. ARFs and RTF planes have proliferated because people wanted them. They've kept the hobby alive if anything as the instant generation took an interest. There are many threads on RCU about the decline of the hobby. What it boils down to really is that it's not new or cutting edge anymore, therefore kids don't care about it as much. It has gentrified, and like any organization that does that flying clubs will have to reinvent themselves in order to survive.
07-25-2018, 09:08 AM
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Right. And look at the questions ask by the folks in the ARF world. they know very little about how to even set up an ARF. And forget about simple repairs.
The hobby is now just a toy box for cry babies.
The hobby is now just a toy box for cry babies.
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Fletch88 (05-01-2020)
08-04-2018, 07:25 AM
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Change is hard, people don't like change. I guess the FF and CL guys lost their minds too when RC started becoming popular.
ARFs have been around since the late 60's. If you pick up any magazine of the vintage, you see ads for them.
Let's also not forget that a "kit" is a convenience item as well. All of the wood is precut, most of the hardware is included and you have plans and an instruction booklet. Many mfr's touted the level or "prefabrication" in their kits. I remember threads of guys who had only built GP and TF kits trying to put together an old school kit from one of the smaller companies which supplied only a crummy photocopied page of general assembly methods.
08-04-2018, 03:01 PM
#16
I stopped by a neighboring club to visit today,, talking with the guys there, they are down to 40 members after having over 100 a few years back,,, I thought we had problems at 75 members, we had over a 100 a 2-3 years ago too, I'd say well over 90% of our membership fly ARFs exclusively ,,, Pushing away newbie guys who fly ARFs is a good formula for flying by your snooty, snob, elitist self all alone out in the desert,, have fun with that. 
08-04-2018, 05:58 PM
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From what I have seen in my club is ARF flyers only stay in the hobby for a short time, like wam bam thank you I am done. Done that now on to the next thing to get instant gratification. If they had to learn to build a plane from a kit to get involved in the first place they probably would not have even tried, too much work for them. The problem is that all the ARF planes requiring no real talent or investment needed to participate makes many folks with skills to drop out. I believe that is why the lower and lower club member count.
08-05-2018, 05:13 AM
#18
OK,, so how does calling people cry babies help boost your club membership? You think somehow ARF-shaming them is going to keep them in the hobby longer? I learned long ago,, being a jerk to people is not an effective way to motivate them to my way of thinking or doing,,
Take what the ARF only newbie guys have to offer, an be thankful,, it's not 30 years ago and it will never be again
Take what the ARF only newbie guys have to offer, an be thankful,, it's not 30 years ago and it will never be again
08-05-2018, 05:51 AM
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Who said anything about scamming people? only you assume that. Just pointing out what is happening in clubs and why. Myself, yeah I been building models since I was a 10 yo boy. I like to build and create more than to fly, I have been building from plans for years and will continue to do so regardless of what others are doing. Ya see I like the entire hobby just not a piece of it.
08-05-2018, 01:16 PM
#20
Who said anything about scamming people? only you assume that. Just pointing out what is happening in clubs and why. Myself, yeah I been building models since I was a 10 yo boy. I like to build and create more than to fly, I have been building from plans for years and will continue to do so regardless of what others are doing. Ya see I like the entire hobby just not a piece of it.
Ya see I like the entire hobby just not a piece of it
08-05-2018, 02:58 PM
#21
I take the phrase " entire hobby " to mean building and flying as opposed to assembling and flying. I would place myself into that category as well but will also add designing to that as well. Although I don't much care for ARFs either I have owned a few over the years. They flew fine but IMO they were not as durable as something I would have built myself. At the end of the day ARFs are just not for me unless they are of the composite variety. I however do not think the invasion of ARFs are to blame for the decrease of popularity in our hobby. In fact I think our numbers would be even lower if it were not for ARFs. What I do feel is suffering due to the popularity of ARFs is the knowledge to properly set up and trim an airplane. I end up spending a great deal of time working with guys in my club on these issues. Most times the club member in question has already made the determination that the airplane is a " bad design " just to find out that with some adjustments to CG, aileron throws/differential, thrust angles etc. After a few of these adjustments the airplane would then fly in a much more acceptable manner. IMO the best we can do is educate our fellow modeler regardless of what type of construction their airplane is.
08-05-2018, 04:28 PM
#22
I take the phrase " entire hobby " to mean building and flying as opposed to assembling and flying
Years ago well before ARFs were prevalent I had a flying friend the would bash some other guy's kit builds because the weren't scale enough like Royal kits for example,, he was an elitist snob too,,I knew other guys would bash the guys who covered using monokote vs glass/paint,, more elitist snobbery aka "the way I build is better than your way" BS behavior. Some things never change.
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08-05-2018, 05:06 PM
#23
I didn't think that I implied at all that I had an issue with assembling ARFs as opposed to building kits. Just that my preference was to build my own airplanes the same that one could draw the conclusion that your preference would be for scale models. The main point to my post was to embrace all aspects and help one another out when we are able to do so.
08-06-2018, 03:25 PM
#25
Yes words do have meaning, most agreed. However take a snippet out of a post and quote it out of context and the perceived meaning could be far different then intended.
Truthfully I thought the sentence below would be much more worthy of a quote.
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J330 (02-14-2020)