BGC22,

I'm 39 years old, when I started 8 months ago I didn't know CA glue from EPOXY. You may have experience. However, nothing infuriates me as much as someone with "18 years experience" telling you it will take three weeks to build a kit.

There was plenty of building on my LT-40 ARF! It took me about 4 weeks to get it all together.

Read a few reviews in RCM, they all say how easy it is to assemble an ARF, THEN they go on for pages about how the landing gear didn't fit and they had to mod this or the engine was off-center and they had to mod that. My point is that there are many experience modelers who either can't or won't remember what it is like for the newbie to put together their first model.

If I recommended to my clients that they build their own PCs (which I CAN do after 18 years of experience) I'd get pounded. HOWEVER, all these experience modelers have no qualms about treating newbies as if they SHOULD have all THEIR experience.

All I can say is try and DISASSEMBLE some balsa you have CAed together because the instructions didn't tell you which side was up... Point of information - Most instructions are written by the same experience modelers that assume you have 10 years experience and an industrial strength shop. It is very rare to NOT find a list of suggested mods, even for models with great instructions (such as SIG).

There's nothing wrong with ARFs and you can build a kit on your second plane.

But, my message is HAVE FUN. If you can't wait to get your plane in the air (which is how I was), get an ARF. Remember, you may NOT like the hobby. (not likely, but you never know).

Be cool,

GB