Heres something to think about based on what I've seen over the last 30 years i've been flying.

If you add up the amount the average "sports/hobby Sunday flyer" (or what ever you call them) spends over a year on hobby shop eye candy... A SE here... a extra there... a Kyosho this... a awful scale that plus at bit of this, a bit of that...a crash here, a crash there, here a crash, here a new model, every where a crash crash..... I'd bet they spend a great deal more than one decent F3A pilot. They, well the ones I hang with, Buy a new aeroplane every year, last years maodel being the backup and sell the redundent one...kinda airframe recycling. Thats all they buy! One aeroplane and loads of fuel. Onec you've invested in a desent set of digitals and a couple comp' engines...they'll see you being competitive for quite a few seasons, no worries!

My entire hanger now consists of two fully equiped 2x2s and a G-trick. I've sold everything else. And boy was it a sale aeroplane, after aeroplane collected over the years... event went through a period that I couldn't walk into a hobby store without walking out with an aeroplane and engine... just couldn't do it, until I started flying pattern and then discovered thatīcompared to these aeroplanes everything else is simply rubbish.

Now, years later I havn't been to a hobby store since gods knows when! They just don't stock anything worth having... I have the internet, a credit card and a contact with ZN line and Central Hobbies. This year like last, they will have one sale each. I spend less now than I've ever spent...go figure.