quote:
ORIGINAL: John Redman
It is more of an assembly line than you can imagine. Pretty amazing all in all. I have watched the people in China cover a model in minutes compared to our hours as modelers. Just incredible to see. Everything is jig built one way or another. All in all the process is very good and the ARF's of today will rival most modelers attempts at construction.
Oh man that is so not the case. I just recently lost a plane due to a catastrophic wing failure and when looking at the wreckage it was very evident that there was no where near enough glue to hold the wing ribs in place. They were tack glued at best and there was no further glue used after the "tacking in place stage" I can tell you one thing, when I build a kit I do not use glue sparingly and if I am no hurry I used wood glue versus Ca as the final bond is much stronger. ARF's are built on assembly lines for a reason...cheap, fast and by people who could care a less how well they are built. This DOES NOT apply to all ARF assemblers but most of them are cheap fast and careless!
WHOA, let me back the horse up a bit....MY post in response to John's post was by no means a flame or a slam at Horizon Hobbies what so ever. The plane I lost was not a Horizon or an E-flite Product. I beleive and I have experience with this that Horizon Hobbies sells some of the best quality ARF's out there. What I was referring to was John't last line
All in all the process is very good and the ARF's of today will rival most modelers attempts at construction.
In my opinion and it is my opinion only, if you compared an ARF out of "some" of the manufacturers in China (not namely those that supply Horizon) and the product built by an above average builder, you would see that the above average builder would win out everytime.
I have enjoyed owning a Hanger 9 Extra 330S until such times as I had a certain brand of servos lock up the elevator due to a center pin boss failure and I will say that ARF was very well built.
John if any of my original post was taken out of context, please accept my apologies, I was not by any means slamming Horizon or it's products, Horizon products and their customer service have always been excellent to me.