RE: more on arf quality/ safety
That is my main gripe with ARFs. You shouldn't have to re-design, re-glue, re-check, strengthen firewalls and gear blocks and stuff like that. Most people buying ARFs are first time builders or low time flyers. They don't know enough about the hobby to know to re-check things like incidence. They market these things to the newer or lower time guys, and then the planes show up with problems, and those same guys don't know how to fix it. Just seems like it will come back and bite them. The market has gotten a lot better over the years though. I have built a couple in the last few years and was overall impressed, other than the obvious weaknesses in design that I changed on them. The Shoestring by Great planes is a blast. I wish they would put that one out in a kit.