No need to hide, but your message got me thinking. Do you think people just come out of the wood works, no experience, and go get a jet? Quite frankly no.

All the jet model pilots I talked to had a lot of prior experience, and gathered a lot of information before jumping in the pool. So, while your statement "Building some stuff might be needed to understand an ARF" is true, it is irrelevant because people do have prior modelling experience before their first jet.

This is a big country and maybe what I said does not apply in your neck of the woods...

Besides, the minority of the people are NOT "builders" or "ARFers". Almost all the people I know are a mixed bag (not exclusively one or the other). The premise of the survey is flawed. On the other hand all of those that like myself have been in the hobby time enough have been 100% builders at one point (there were not ARFs)

One thing I DID notice is that some elements in our hobby really need a life, and understand this is a hobby (for most of us at least), and as such, this is to unwind and have fun. In my case it worked that way for 40 years:-) When I see people setting up something in the Internet (Futaba Vs whatever, electric vs gas, builders that use balsa vs. builders that use foam, ARFS vs non-ARFS, 72 versus 2.4, and other subjects) and I do not talk just about this forum, I always remember when SNL in a parody of Sesame Street said (and I quote): "This show was brought to you by the letter F and U..."

Gerry
If you are not having fun, you are doing something wrong. If you see somebody else having fun with the hobby and you think they are doing it wrong, just keep your mouth shut, and get help. There IS help available...