We are a dying breed us builders.We're also a bunch of hoarders! I've got 32 engines when I last counted and only four of those are in serviceable models. I've got four unstarted kits and seven models awaiting completion or maintenance but I'm a lightweight compared with a bloke who died last autumn. He left behind 42 unstarted kits including four four-engined scale models, 37 airframes, some fitted with engines and or radios, 39 engines, 7 transmitters, I could go on but you get my drift. Let's just say a total of 463 aeromodelling related products, that's counting a big box of plans as one item!
I'm nearly 67. When I was a child, we were not poor, far from it, but there wasn't that much money to throw about, so if you could find a bargain, you bought it! As the Grim Reaper works his way through our ranks there will be more hand-built models for us to acquire. The younger ARTF Set won't be interested. We will have the skill to repair and maintain them but in the end, they'll all go for kindling. Come back in fifty years and only a handful of eccentric practitioners will be building their own models out of balsa and ply. Will they be collecting electric motors then or organising competitions for old quad-copters?
I'll say this for the younger generation. They will have to be very adaptable in years to come because their jobs are likely to change from under their feet. You think that the pace of change is fast now? Just you wait. They will grow up in a world where everything changes so rapidly that they won't be able to understand how someone could spend months or even years building a model only to damage or destroy it on its first flight. It will look like a waste of time and effort to them. Those that have families to raise may not have the time or facilities to indulge in building and ARTFs cater for them. Cest la vie. I'm glad I'm out of the rat race.
I have tried to explain my interest in building to younger members of my club as they packed away their ARTFs. I explain that if you build your own models, with sports model you may choose your own colour scheme and as far as scale models are concerned, you may choose an unusual aircraft rather than be stuck with the same range of aerobats and fighters. They didn't seem to be understand what I was talking about.
Excuse me while I go and work on restoring my 1958 Uproar!