Originally Posted by
TomCrump
If a person has more money than he knows what to do with, by all means go the foam or ARF route.
Ok, let's look at the reality here.
Arf trainer- Hobbico Superstar $124 from Tower + epoxy to assemble it $8
Trainer kit- Great Planes PT-40 $89 from Tower, plus 2 rolls of covering $35, glue, hinges, and various hardware $40, plus a flat building board and various tools.
Time commitment: ARF- about 6 hours. Kit- about 30 hours. Note that these hours will be spent here at the end of summer while most clubs are still having official training days. After DST ends, most clubs stop having them.
Tom did hit on a weakness in a few new flyers, the fact that they don't think about how planes are made and so they don't think about how to fix things. But the guy in the story who didn't realize you could put a line of gorilla glue on a foam stabilizer sounds like kind of a dummy. I've never built a kit or even an ARF in 9 years of doing the hobby (not for lack of wanting to, but I can buy used airplanes so much cheaper), but I can fix anything. So can anybody else if they are motivated. So the OP can do what he wants. The kit route is fun and definitely will teach you some things about how planes are made, and the ARF route is faster and will get you to the airfield while there are still instructors to work with you. Your choice.