I have seen precisely two ARFs since returning to the hobby 6 months ago (about a 25 year layover). I've always been a kit builder but volunteered to assemble a Phoenix Decathlon ARF. The kit's pathetic covering and sloppy assembly in general confirmed my preconceived notion about ARFs. I also volunteered to assemble the subject of this thread for my brother and I was very much surprised at the quality of the covering and model construction (what you can see) in general. How it flies? We have not yet tried it.

(Anyone that builds kits has to be wondering how they do it,,, I surely do.)

PS: Anyone about to buy that Phoenix Decathlon should note that I had to spend a LOT of time re-shrinking the highly wrinkled covering only to see it return to the previous wrinkled state ten days later,,, even though it had never been out in the sun.

BTW: Cheap or not I will still build my own _ even it it does cost three times as much (:-)