I have to agree with Gray Beard on building from plans after a couple of kits. Building from a kit, the instruction manual walks you through building each area such as the rudder, the wing, the fuselage, etc. The instructions also tell you how to attach these areas together and what to look for. Now, after building several kits, wouldn't one build the rudder in a similar manner and build wings in the same way? I have only scratched build a Super Kaos. It was not easy and it was not hard. Cutting the pieces was easy, but visualizing the individual pieces to cut from the plan was much harder. What helped me was that I built an Ultrasport 40 and 60, which is almost the same plane as the Super Kaos. Reading plans can be a bit tasking for some because you are trying to visualize a 3d object from 2d plans. BUt, we all do this without knowing it. The best example is reading a map. It is a 2d plan of a 3d object. You learn what all the symbols and lines on the map mean. You know where things are in relationship to other things. It is alot like reading electrical schematics to build circuits. The schematics are no different than a map with all its symbols. I think that sometimes we pysche ourselves out by saying that we can't do it because we try to take it all in at once. It took time, but I learned what the symbols meant. I then looked at how two symbols were connected and how parts were connected to other parts. Before long, I could read schematics and actually build the circuit. Building a plane from plans only is the same way. Now, I have seen some plans that are hard to decipher in some places and I just say that these are poorly drawn plans or they need additional drawings to make the complexity easier to understand. I think what we have is a lack of a knowledge base in general building of airplanes. One thing that I have done for my club is to buy (mostly from EBay) RC Modeler Magazines, the older MAN magazines, plus many how to books from MAN and Harry Higley that discuss building techniques. I have taken these books and scanned them all as PDFs and have allowed people to read them from a thumb drive and give me back the thumb drive when they are done. I see this as being no different then handing them a book to read and asking for the book back. Now I know that they could just copy the pdf file, but they could easily copy the pages of the book too. Sometimes, I have sent articles from these magazines to other RCU members who ordered plans from RCM. If you haven't ordered a plan from RCM, all you get is the plans and a typed article (with no pictures) to build your plane.

Happy Flying and soft landings!