Ah yes, the infamous Hangar 9 Corsair "Not Enough Glue on the firewall picture". I was waiting for it to show up in this thread! That picture has been used by almost every oponent of ARFing to substantiate claims of poor ARF quality. That picture has been floating around these forums for a year or two. (Maybe three??)Anyway, Jim, I'm not implying you are trying to substantiate anything. I'm remembering other, older (and much hotter threads...FLAME ON!) You're argument is valid and its a good picture to show everyone (especially new ARF pilots).

When ARFs first hit the market a few years ago the quality of some (most?) of them was lacking and in unexperienced hands they were dangerous. Bad combination! Everyone thought they would need to bring a hardhat to the field or risk having a warbird fall on your noggin!

ARF construction has come a long way in the last year or two. MOST (not all, some still stink!, but most) of the ARFs are now built to the standards of the average builder. There is enough glue, support, etc for a safe airplane. Contrary to what "Millitant Builders" would like to believe, buying and flying an ARF in 2006 is as safe as building and flying your own kit.

I know this because I inspect the ARFs that I assemble and have seen the differnce a few years make. But more importantly by everyone's own admission, the flying field is FULL of "SHI**Y" ARFs. Yet with all these ARFs out there, there is not an overubundnace of them crashing. Not to mention that not every crash is structural either. As far as I can tell, ARFs don't crash anymore or less than kits do.

The bottom line is that while there COULD have been mass produced accidents, most ARF assemblers (but that, I mean the people building them not the factories) cared enough to look at what they were assembling, fix any problerms they discovered and shared the knowledge with others at the field and on the forums so that event never happened.

Proving once again that its the people, not the planes, that create a safe environment.