ORIGINAL: panzertank
I am a fairly capable pilot and want to find a low/mid wing rtf that runs on glow fuel. All i have found is arf low wings, but with all the parts glue, heat guns, and other equipment you need to buy these planes can cost $450-$600 which has seriously detered me from buying one. I have been loooking for months and haven't found what i want. Any opinons, ideas, or suggestions will be GREATLY APPRECIATED.
You don't mention what size you're interested in. That would help.
From what I've seen, RTFs suffer from wrinkled covering about as often as ARFs. And the way that is solved is with an iron. They're actually fairly cheap. And if you look at the actual cost of assembling an ARF, it's nowhere near your estimate.
An iron, a bottle of CA, some 30min epoxy, and a roll of masking tape. If you splurge, you can throw in a bottle of medium CA. And a bottle of canopy glue. That's about it.
I just leafed through the Tower catalog that just came in the mail and all those things together is about $40. And will do at least 10-15 ARFs.