ORIGINAL: rimfirematt
Its the sign of the times we live in. No time, No Space, the need for instant gratification.
Arfs and RTF's are definitly the way that 99% of beginers are getting started. Read the forums, its really hard to find a post where someone built their trainer from a kit. And why is that? Cause overall Quality of ARFS are good and getting better and thanks to labor costs in the asias, costs are keeping down.
What I would like to see is a modified arf. One that came with HIGH Quality, Awesome power engine installed, high quality Rx, battery pack and servos installed. Basically you would just have to pick your crystal out before you left the store to match your radio.
I kind of like tinkering with my planes though, after all its a hobby and what fun is a hobby that is already done for you?
Funny you mention that. When I was younger, I remember how excited I was to get a Tamiya Frog buggy kit for Christmas one year. The greatest part about it was putting the whole thing together and learning how the car worked. About two years ago I got the bug to try cars again and started shopping around. I was appalled to find out that it was actually cheaper to get a nitro stadium truck RTR than it was to buy just the truck kit, let alone the engine and radio![X(] You can't hardly find any cars as kits anymore, except the high-end competition stuff and the Tamiya lineup. And the people that buy them are largely ignorami, bringing them back to the hobby store I shop at every time it won't start or they break a shock mount--don't want to learn to fix it themselves. I agree with you, half(at least) the fun is in building and tinkering. I just hope that the market demand doesn't do to the r/c airplane market what it's done to the r/c car market.