It's tough to make a general statement about this, so I'll try my best. There are kits out there that will take well over 100 hours if you want to do it right. I am working on a Midwest Extra and probably have 60 hours into it. The fuse is built up, wing is joined, tail feathers are complete. I estimate that by the time I have the plane flying I will have well over 100 hours in it. I am going to venture a guess by saying that covering the plane will take two weeks alone, and I have covered a lot of kits. Of course these times don't include the standard head scratching time, which can double the time spent in the shop. In comparison, something comparable would be a World Models Extra, which I have not built but a friend of mine did. Sizing up the plane, I can see that it probably took 20 hours to get the plane flight-ready. In this case I'd say the ARF was around 80-85% complete; not bad.

In contrast, however, a stick-plane like a Super Stunts will also take around 15 hours to assemble, but a comparable kit could easily be completed in under 50 hours. That is the type of kit where the frame comes up really fast and most of the time is spent covering and going through the final assembly motions.

There is a phrase in the homebuilt aircraft world: "90% done, 90% to go." This reflects your belief that the completed parts of a plane are further away from being flight-ready than their appearance would suggest. Sometimes this applies to ARF's, and sometimes they really are close to making their first flight. Hope this helps!