I was building and flying in the early eighties when most of the planes at the fields I flew from were kit built. AND MOST OF THOSE PLANES WERE JUNK! Almost any decent contemporary ARF is better built and finished. There were a lot of people building kits then, and still some now, who have no craftsmanship whatsoever! Yet they would proudly claim and show off their planes. Totally clueless! (Sorry, but I felt the need to inject some objective honesty.)

That being said, I don't like or buy ARFs. In fact I have never owned an ARF. ( Except for my "toss in the trunk, knock-about" plane, a Hobby Lobby Miracle.) In part I don't like ARFs because, as others have said, they fill up hobby shops and magazines. Look at Hobby Lobby's adds, "We have taken the work out of the hobby." Well not for many of us! For many of us Hobby Lobby has taken at least 50% of the fun out of the hobby! If I could no longer build the planes I fly, I would leave the hobby permanently. To me -- and I don't mean this in a deprecatory way -- just flying ARFs is just playing. Not that there is anything wrong with that -- I just want more out of the hobby than ARFs have to offer.

ARFs also fill up the flying fields -- with owners some of us have little in common with. They bring out their shiny new ARFs and talk about how difficult a "build" it was. Then they ask about your kit or scratch built plane and look at you like you are an idiot when it dawns on them that you spent 100 or more hours actually "building" it! Some even try to convince you that building from scratch or a kit is a waste of time when, "Look at this ARF you could have gotten."

The predominance of ARFs seems to have taken the need for craftsmanship, and respect for excellent craftsmanship, out of the hobby. And I think maybe that is really what many of us don't like about ARFs.