I completely agree with you that the ARFs need much attention, strengthening, and re-design during the build. Hangar 9 did a pretty good job with their kits years ago, but their ARF's are not designed well at all. Cheap, thin, weak wood; plywood that is so soft that it cuts like balsa; and the worst hardware that I've seen. Just throw out the hardware and buy American.

It seems that Hangar 9 designs their planes to be flimbsy. That way, when you have a small mishap, your plane is completely destroyed, so that you buy another. It's called marketing replenishment!

Many ARF's are like this ... even Great Planes and World Models ... plywood that is soft and cuts like butter, weak structure design, hot glue, poor covering, hardware that is not worth using, foam wheels, etc.

When I build an ARF, I remove all the covering, reinforce many areas, replace the landing gear blocks with real plywood, glue all the joints with CA, add epoxy and carbon fiber in several areas, use Dubro hardware & fuel tanks, Hayes engine mounts, Great planes fuel line, and recover the plane with MONOKOTE.

Put and ARF together in 10 hours as the manufactures claims??? Hardly! It takes me at least 150 hours to build an ARF so that it won't come apart in the sky.

I prefer to build kits.