Hi Jim

You make me feel privileged. I have a dedicated 2 circle control-line field about 20 minutes and a 20km drive from me. Actually it's my primary club with a decided section of C/L only members, but which also operates R/C from another site. I confess though to seldom flying C/L any more, primarily because of the inconvenience through the irregularity of available C/L flying buddies for other than for a few hours one morning a week and the associated cost and timie to build issue. I want to fly, not build.

Which brings up the topic of ARF C/L. I think as you've suggested, that the degree of succes enjoyed by the couple of models introduced caught the companies which took that initiative by surprise. Their success however has been confined to the US so far because of price, distribution and demand. We can't get the Brodaks locally here. Only the Nobler and Flite Streak have been made available and are at last approaching anywhere near what might be considered locally competitive and acceptable pricing. Clearly in the choice of Flite Streak and Nobler however, the company were not targetting a contemporary generation. I'm glad the Tutor has since been included in the line-up, and now SIG have taken a bold move with the Primary Force.

What would possibly provide a significant increase in activity, in returning participants if not new ones but with possibly a minor flow on effect, would be lower pricing and significantly greater range of C/L ARFs as in R/C, though neither are likely to happen if only because of the laws of supply and demand affording economy and scale of production. I fly both R/C IC and C/L, and now limited electric (electric launch assisted glider) as well pursuing other full size aviation activities. In my book, in addition to the Primary Force, ARF C/L versions of SIG's Twister remodelled to look like an Extra, CAP or Sukhoi all of which are immediately recognisable to the contemporary generation along with their excellent full body Chipmunk as ARFs would be just the go to excite lay interest and imagination. I'd'd buy them if they were available. The Nobler just doesn't excite me, and every time I look at the (local) price of the Flite Streak and the read all the C/L stunt purist whines about the ARFS required re-engineering before they'll fly right, I come to the conclusion I may as well build it myself in the first place....and the cycle continues because I don't want to. If they want to charge that kind of money for a C/L profile aimed at a C/L flier who can already fly C/L and wants something which will fly straight and problem free OOTB, they can't expect me to choose them against another R/C ARF if I have to replace or re-engineer any of the already installed hardware.

In a nutshell, the only thing which would inspire me to fly more C/L these days is if I don't have to build BUT the model will fly like I have. So I think if I echo that, its a fait accompli that the current generation assuredly does. When I have my choice between flying R/C or building C/L ...guess which wins every time?