You've nailed my attraction, my one and only attraction to an ARF. me and my 6 year old can fly an ARF and not really care if we crash it. But with a kit that I've put hundreds of hours into, I'm a bit more cautious about re-kitting it! I love to build. I can't resist the urge to take a freebe set of plans and make it into a flying work of art. The most recent MA has given me some food for thought. The "Foamy" project has made me think about using old meat foam plates to make our own sets of outrageous planes whose ultimate end may be the prop-eating-gopher. This is something that my son and I can do together and then go out and fly it! Very cool. I just have to find a VERY small brushless motor, something on the order of 50 Watts or so with a small ESC to go with my 7 gram micro servos. Something that just flies with flaperons should be find, but a rudder/elevator design is cool too.
DLC
ORIGINAL: chashint
It really is different strokes for different folks.
When I purchased my used ARF trainer to get started I was a proud fellow.
But as some time has passed my desire to have the exact same thing as everyone else has diminished.
The last couple of ARF's I have purchased gave me no pride of ownership, thats just me.
On the positive note if something has to crash I prefer that it be one of the ARF's.
So right now I am into kit building. At some time in the future I may switch back to the ARF.
One thing about an ARF is that if you fly it and you don't like it, you don't have very much invested in it.