ARF's have come a long way, My lanier dart from years ago is a testiment to what was leading edge for the time. Now the arf planse that we buy are really kits that are prebuilt for you. Years ago they would use molded parts and tough plastic on foam to offer an alternitive to building, but now all you find is the same stuff you do to build one, wood wings, built up fuselages, built up tail feathers. In fact, the best value I came across is the Phoenix models sukhoi .46, for $85.00, and the quality of GP (minus the hardware), you can't scratch build it that cheap! For the average builder today, the arf's are right on par with their modeling skills. However in time the best ARF's out there will show their signs of poor glue joints and covering jobs, the firewalls will work loose or a joint in the wing and the covering will sag in the sunlight the first time it's left in the sun for more than 2 hours. Hell, I've even had some of mine bubble and sag from just sitting in my car for 1/2 hour. I still prefer to build but half the planes out there they don't offer a kit for, so I have to scratch build instead, it makes me laugh when I show up with one of my planes and guy's ask where they can get one. Watch how fast they walk away when you tell them that it's scratch built and they can borrow the plans to build one themselves. Today, I only own 4 ARF's because no one makes a kit of them and I didn't think that I could scratch them cheaper than I bought them for, but I stll own more kit built aircraft than I ever will arf.