Hi Mike,

As with anything else there are good and bad Arf's even with the really good manufacturers.

I personally have all Arf's so here is what I think of the ones I have

Vectorflight is a very small company and a really limited set of choices but the construction is outstanding and their customer service should be the basis for all other companies. I have their Edge 540 and the wait was worth it.

Great Planes is also very good I have the Super Stearman and Gene Soucy Extra 300 Both are built very well but the Monokote of the Stearman was so severly wrinkled out of the box that between myself and my youngest daughter we spent 12 hours chasing wrinkles. The Extra was fine as far as wrinkles. Both planes needed some strenghtening here and there but not too bad.

Carl Goldberg...I currently have 2 of the Sukhoi SU-26, one with a YS140 and the other with RCIgnitions lightened Zenoah G26. The only thing I did was beef up the landing gear block on both and pin the firewall on the gas powered one. Both cowls were cracked and warped so I had to get new ones but other than those 2 items they are pretty good. I also had their Ultimate 10-300. This plane was perfect. I did absolutely nothing and flew the crap out of it until I sold it to get into larger planes.

Wildhare...I have his Ultimate. Although I have not started on it yet, the construction is excellent and Tom is very good about getting anything that is found to be a problem and fixed out to the people that have bought his planes. I am considering his Edge next.

Kangke... I had the Cap232-120 until just last Sunday. I planted this thing hard due to pilot error. This thing was so well built but really heavy. I made no changes to the plane and used a Roto35vi gas on it. It flew very well and had all of the normal Cap snappiness engineered out of it.

Hangar-9...I have the Funtana90. Out of the box I had to repair cracked ribs in the right wing. I have the first run and from what I hear that has been solved. I also have the Miss America Mustang and typical of retracts I followed MinnFlyers advice and beefed them. I had the Twist 3D and beat the living crap out of it. I did abosultely nothing to it and it took it well. There are problems with it breaking right behind the wing saddle but I never had it.

Sig... I have the 4*60 and had the 4* 40 plus 2 Somerthin' Extra's. I fly/flew the crap out of the 4*'s and the SSE is a tough plane but they were kits so the SSE's don't really count here.

In my experience most Arf's need something strengthened. After reading posts all of RCU Aerowroks seem pretty good. I here differing view on World Models and most bad stuff about VMAR but I hear they are improving.

For me ARF's are the way to good. I liked doing both SSE's but kits are not my thing.

When I elevuate an ARF at the LHS, I look for obvious damage, I look closely at the fuselagemainly around the tail, wing saddle and firewall. I shake the wing panels to see if I hear anything rattling around and probably more that I cannot remember at this point

I also spend allot of time reading posts here on RCU about something I may be considering. I'm doing that right now with Extreme Aircraft Cap 232 1/4 scale bird. So far I have found nothing bad about it. Assemble it and fly it.