It was mentioned in another thread and I'll voice the same conclusion, at our club field, very few guys fly a kit or scratch built plane, mostly are arfs. We have guys who just love to fly and don't like to build and we have guys who fly arfs that really don't give a care if it does crash, they go out and buy another one. As for me, building is half the fun. I enjoy sitting in my shop figuring out a problem on how I'll do this or that and when it comes time to fly, I get more satisfaction then if I had just went out and bought a arf. It isn't unusual at all that I'll be the only one flying with a kit built plane which looks as good or better and flys as good as any arf there. I have one CMP Corsair that is an arf and one Jemco Hellcat that is a kit and they both fly very good. The only reason I went with the CMP Corsair is that I crashed my Jemco Corsair and I wanted to have another one to fly that season. I have a Gradulate arf that I'm taking out today that had crashed and was rebuilt. Both of the arfs mentioned have had serious accidents and I was surprised how well they held up and could be rebuilt. Out of 14 planes I have that are ready to fly at any time, only two are arfs. I only wish companys like Jemco and Pica or some other company would come out with some good kits like the old ones were. If an arf sells for $150 and the same plane in a kit form sells for $150, I go with the kit only because I enjoy building and I like having something different then the next guy.
Larry