The way I got into the hobby was when my wife bought me a trainer kit for Christmas one year. I spent about 2 months building it, and had a blast. The whole time, though, I kept telling myself, !QUOT!it will never fly, it will fall apart on take off!!QUOT! The first time it flew I was grinning from ear to ear. Something that I had built with my own two hands was taking to the air!!! I won't mention what happened to my second kit on it's maiden flight (it was my piloting, not my craftsmanship, anyways). To me, one of the benefits of building your own plane is repairing it. I've been out of the hobby for about 4 1/2 years. I'm in the military and move around a lot. Both planes had taken damage from transport (and crash damage for the second model, but I'm not mentioning that!) When I decided to fix them it was no big deal. Cut of the mono coat, re-glue the damaged pieces, or in one case, strengthen a cracked spar. I had no problems with this because I'd built them in the first place.

I've never had an ARF (and don't plan to get one either) but I can understand the draw. Some people don't want to spend the time building, they just want to fly. I guess I'm a builder at hart.