I fly during the winter..... I also have a house that needs landscaping, a garage that needs finishing, not to mention a job that ties me up at odd hours at times (gotta love being on-call). Oh yeah, almost forgot the wife, her mom (who is 80 and has health issues), and our 6 year old daughter who has school, functions, etc. I added the family last, because they are first and foremost important. I have two kits up on the shelf, they have not been started simply because I do not have the time to build them. I also bought and sold a 1/3 scale weeks solution biplane project (empty fiberglass fuse/ cowl/ wheelpants), because it was going to take me at least 2 years and $3000.00 for me to do it at the level I wanted it done at. It is not a question of posessing the talent to build them, for I can build contest quality model construction (model railroading, my other "addiction"). I CHOOSE to buy arfs because I can get them into the air in a relatively short span of time. But, I also take my time on an arf (took me close to 40 hours to "assemble" my magic 3d, over the course of a month or two, but it looks and flies as good as 98% of the kits/planes at our field. I can sleep at night with that level of performance.


We can gripe about ARF quality all we want, but there are going to be good ones and bad ones. Same thing happens with kit built planes. There are guys you would gladly buy any plane in their arsenal because they are built straight and true, and there are others whose planes you wouldnt fly if they were given to you. (paintball target drones excepted there )

There are arfs that are exceptional values, and there are some that I could never justify the expense on.

You are taking a risk by having someone other than yourself assemble the plane. And if you have the time/talent to build them yourself, then knock your socks off doing it. We, the consumers have the ultimate yes or no vote in what's hot, and what's not. We are always looking for the newest/latest/greatest products that we can get our hands on (that doesnt just apply to RC) We want it yesterday, for it to look and work perfect, never break, and we want it for as close to free as possible. And if it doesnt meet or exceed all of those items, we are going to gripe about it. That is the American way. We can offer "constructive criticism" to AMC, and her coutnerparts to encourage them to monitor and/or improve their quality control, so we can truly "get what we pay for". If they do not address those concerns to your satisfaction, you and use the power of your checkbook/credit cards to buy somewhere else.

I think i added $.04 instead of my $.02 cents worth

Steve