I don't have any real bad experiences with ARF's, unless you call a wing coming off in flight bad.

There are a number of guys/organizations in Australia importing direct from factories in China. Many of these models look EXACTLY the same as established distributors' products, particularly Nitro Planes, Kyosho and Hangar 9. They could well be the same factories.

The disadvantage of buying these clones is that there seems to be little quality control exercised by the direct importers where the established importers/distributors seem to insist on a minimum standard, but after reading some of these posts maybe that's not the case.

A few months ago I bought a CAP 232 from one of these guys who import direct and sell mostly via ebay. It was beautifully finished, and what I could see inside seemed to be an OK build. I did my usual routine with an ARF, anybody's ARF, painted epoxy around the engine bulkhead, and any other joints I could get to, even if they seemed like they were OK.

I bolted Magnum .91 FS up front and went to the field. I couldn't have found a sweeter flying aircraft, almost no trim required, and after a couple of days out, I started to give it a workout in aerobatics, nothing radical at this early stage, e.g., no lomcevaks, just loops, rolls, stall turns, etc.

It was falling vertically after a stall turn, no power on it, and a wing came off, trashing the aircraft, engine, and a servo on impact.

I pulled the skin off the wing, and found that the ply wing joiner went into nothing on one side of the wing, i.e., the joiner box had been installed all on one side of the wing, with nothing to accept the joiner on the other. So the only thing holding the wing halves together was the epoxy between the inner wing ends, and a 1/4" dowel toward the trailing edge. The balsa webs between upper and lower rails of the spar had the grain running horizontally.

I took the wreckage back to the seller and showed him the problem for which he accepted responsibility, and exchanged the pile of rubble for another ARF, and Extra 300S, and an ASP .91 FS which he also imports. When I got it to my workshop I took the monokote off the lower surface of the wing and looked inside; same horizontal grain on the webs, and webs extending only a third of the span, and the aluminium wing joiner only just making it into the second rib. I did quite a lot of remedial work bringing it up to scratch, including extending the aluminium tube spar to about 2/3 of the span each side.

I've had a few days out with the aircraft, and it flys every bit as good as the CAP. I'm about to start giving it a real workout, and I know the wing is strong enough, but the point I make is that a buyer shouldn't have to virtually rebuild an ARF; that's the point of buying ARF's, isn't it?

A friend boiught a bigger CAP, about 80" span, from him a little after I did, had an almost identical experience a few weeks after me. Level flight, about 50% power, and a wing just came off. The build was every bit as shabby when he stripped the covering and took a close look.

This young enterpreneur, who migrated from China with his parents as a kid, tells me that a lot of factories have sprung up as a result of a worker in an established factory leaving and setting up on his own. He employs farmers and other seasonal workers in their off season. There's nothing wrong with that (Boeings are built largely by unskilled workers) except that the workers receive no training, so don't have much idea of what they're doing, so the quality is not there.

Sorry this is a little long winded, and i can't give an actual model I suggest you don't buy, but it may give an idea of why some ARF's aren't up to scratch.

Anybody can import these ARF's. If you do a google search and find the Made in China, or Alibaba, sites, you'll have ARF manufacturers coming out your ears; prices are good, e.g., if you bought 250-300 models, about a container load, you'd land them in the US for not much over US$60 each, the same models that sell through Tower and the LHS for $150+, so there's good money to be made. The problem you encounter is that unless you go there and specify a standard, you'll end up with a lot of junk.

But then Aibaba and Made in China also have QC experts who will take care of that for you for a fee.