ORIGINAL: Patriot
I think with ARF's, one automatically goes into sort of an assumption mode. This mode gives you the assumption that the plane has been constructed right and everything will be fine. All you have to do is bolt it together and sore off into the wild blue yonder. This is unfortunately a real problem with the advertising of these planes. The companies make it seem like you don't have to do anything, which is of course the intention. But, unfortunately, it just isn't like that.
Then they shouldn't advertise that it is. The ARF's I've seen wouldn't be airworthy using the hardware they give you or simply putting them together as the instructions say. I've only assembled a couple, but they needed a lot of work to make them safe.
However, when was the last time you read an ad that said:
We tell you that you can be flying in 5 hours, but the reality is that this plane may be really dangerous unless you go in and redo a lot of stuff that we did wrong. Also, the hardware that we include is sub-standard and should be replaced. But it is a complete hardware package - unusable as it is.