ORIGINAL: BobbyMcGee
ORIGINAL: ckreef
I think the main issue missing is ''How much do you value your time?? How much free time do you have??''
Another item missing is ARF's, which is sort of 1/2 way between RTF and kit.
A RTF is one evening at the most then fly the next day.
A ARF is maybe one week of evenings.
A kit is multiple months of evenings at the very least.
I have gone all three ways (RTF, ARF and kit). Kit building is not for everyone and at the current cost of ARF's/RTF's, a kit build really doesn't save you any money. There are good ARF's/RTF's and there are bad, there are also mistakes made during a kit build (especially for new builders). Kit building has a huge degree of satisfaction but if you screw up and crash and burn on maiden then you watched 3 months of time go down the drain.
P.S. - As a disclaimer I am currently helping my son (12 years old) kit build a small plane but my next personal project is a ARF electric converted to glow.
And I would dare say... If you enjoy crashing as much as the next guy does, the most efficient use of your time would be RTF's. Buy it today, crash it tomorrow, buy another RTF, crash it the next day, buy another one and crash that the next day too ... and so on, and so on. Within a week, you can have at least three crashes to your name! That equates to MORE CRASHES FOR YOUR BUCK. You can't do that with a kit. With a kit, you might be able to build three in a year and only get three crashes out of it. But maybe you could crash a kit-built plane more than once! Whereas, RTF's and ARF's can only crash once.
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You need to have a talk with your instructor! In our hobby, crashing is not good. We do a maneuver that is called landing... 1) take off 2) fly 3) land. Memorize that:-)
Gerry