Absolutely correct!! [sm=thumbup.gif]

Here is a really nice 60" wingspan, $99 scale model that is not a beer cooler. It is balsa, plywood, and film covering. If CMP can do it, all the mfg's can do it.

http://www.nitroplanes.com/cmp-ep-pa28-kit.html

Some guys know nothing but foam. So they think they like it. Reminds me of a story I read when I was a kid about poor village kids who never got fresh milk. They only had powdered milk, growing up. Then one time a special effort was made to bring these village kids fresh, real milk. They didn't like it and would not drink it. They wanted their powdered milk.

Why don't you drive a Lamborgini instead of what you are presently driving? That's just silly to say that. I have both balsa and foam planes and also a 50cc CompARF Yak-54 with a DA 50 gasoline engine. I enjoy flying my foam planes just as much as any plane I have. When I don't have time to go to the AMA sanctioned field, I throw one up in my back yard after work and have fun. 3D pilots like me put our servos on the outside of the plane to shorten the linkage to reduce slack and get faster input. When you are hovering your $3000 airplane 3 feet off the ground this makes alot of sense. I'm sure none of your airplanes have any engine heads sticking out of the cowling either, Lord help us all. What has happened to this hobby??

I'm with you Opwan, diversity is a good thing and it's here to stay, like it or not, in the hobby, workplace or life itself.

Turning your nose up at foam planes is your right and you don't have to fly them but they're here to stay, why??? cheap to mass produce, fly great, manufacturers love them, so do most pilots who fly them.

Please stop with the heavy metal & rock, I can't even say it in the same sentence with music, because it is just noise. Oh and foamies are the worst...

Oh, I'm sure you drive a Lamborgini also!

Not quite, but I do drive a Land Rover Range Rover HSE supercharge & you?

Two things
1 fly what youwant and are experienced enough to fly
2 ROCK AND ROLL AINT NOISE POLUTION

a question that I have is are fiberglass airplanes any good

Fiberglass airplanes ROCK!

Negatives:
-RAP music
-Country Music (at a bar-b-que, I once told a relative........"Hey, your radio is broke, there is Country Music coming out of it!!!)
-ARF's

Positives:
+New kits on the market (what, they still make NEW kits? Sorry, I guess that was a dream. I am only see the the same kits I saw 10 years ago)
+Rock & Roll and loud Guitars (Ovation Dave is was from a nickname due to the fact I played an ovation guitar)
+Mesa Boogie guitar Amps & Gibson Guitars
+Bigger wheels on planes for grass runways
+My Flying Field (& club)
+CA glue on my fingertips
+The smell of sanding basswood in the morning
+A servo mounted ANY way as long as I BUILT IT that way!

Dave

And pick up your drooping pants, especially when flying.

Personally and sincerly , I think in this day and age with all the people out of work , sick , violence ect , its really say to use Gods name even in a pretend prayer for something as silly as foam arfs , I mean come on really , dont we have a better way of communicating ?

Ok I'm in. How about STOP saying you are BUILDING an ARF!!!![:@] You DID NOT BUILD IT!!! A guy being paid 10 cent an hour in China BUILT IT!!![:-] You are just ASSEMBLING IT!![X(] You build a house, you assemble a double wide!!!

Finally, a Radio consists of a transmitter, receiver, servos and batteries. When you say "I'm selling the radio" I expect all of that not just the transmitter!!!![:@]

OK, I'm finished!!

Bob Harris

Amen to that. RAP is a bunch of brainwashing crap. When I'm down in the shop, I put the CD in for Big Bands( Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman) not some rap crap where all they do is talk trash. Its pathetic.

O yeah, I dont build many ARFs with foam, just one Great Planes revolver with foam core sheeted wings.

Stop giving me ideas to make wife mad , Its cold in the doghouse this time of the year. lol

If you go to a store to buy a radio they will just give you just the transmitter and the receiver and not servos and batteries

someone should build a real flying craft out of foam, just to prove how rediculus it is.

Okay, I will admit it. I am a hypocrite. [&o]

I actually built a foamie! [X(]

I drive an F-250 King Ranch Turbo diesel with a superchip running about 525 HP and 700ft pounds of torque. Wanna hook it up to your toy? LOL...If that's not good enough I built my son a Turbo charged Honda Civic with an Acura RSX 6 speed engine, low compression JE pistons, eagle rods and crank, laptop controlled ECU with a 20lb boost HKS turbo that is 345 REAL HP at the wheels that weighs about 2000 lbs that will smoke a Vette, 5 litre Mustang, M5 or anything else you wanna bring to the pot in a quarter mile. We've got about $30,000 in it. Nothing brings a greater smile to your face when you smoke a $100,000 sports car with a Honda Civic. So if ya wanna hook em up or drag race you just let me know, I will ablige. Now what ya got to say little man.... Sorry to embarass you but you asked for it... I bet that supercharged image booster is a hoss though!

So let me get this straight. Simply because YOU don't like something, they should stop making it?? Is that right?
Sounds a bit selfish to me.

You can take your Diesel 250, Honda civic, all your HP & your $30k and it doesn't even come close to a Range Rover Supercharge due your research. Get yourself a real Suv, it's rugged and it says class. BTW..have fun building your kit cars.

On another note, rock & country is worse than rap and I listen to all genres of music and that stuff is horrible. My thing is this, If I don't like something I either don't listen to it, buy it, wear it, eat it or drive it. With that being said if you don't like foamies or rap don't buy it or listen to it, it's that simple.

Hey foamies aint that bad, I do not own one but I love when they crash at the field and the guy throws them away! I use them for package material when I sell something on RCU! Thats the only way I will have one of the butt ugly things! And I am not a fan of electric planes either!

As far as RAP, I came home once and my youngest daughter was playing the rap crap loud, I had her shut it off and took her to the clinic for her and I blood test! I am very happy to report she wasn't mine!

Dude are you serious? I can drag that SUV all over the country. You're funny. I don't have to do any research. 700ft lbs does not a Land Rover have in this country. 125 MPH in a quarter mile is not cabable in your Rover, what you smokin dude? I can take my daughters stock Infinity G-35 and blow your doors off. If you wanna meet up sometime I'll embarass you with our "kit Car" it won't be very benifical to your ego and I know that's what you're all about . I know everyone is getting a kick out of your ignorance by now so let it go or put your money where your mouth is if you have any left after buying your ego play toy. Read the hype of Land Rover's published HP and torque and I'll show you real world statistics. Says class, all it says is you have a small member. Get real dude. Can you build a car from the ground up, like I did? Last I heard Range Rover is not a hot rod of a vehicle even with a supercharger. Some salesman is laughing his way to the bank while filling your hiney full of smoke!

If there's anything I can't tolerate, it's intolerance.

At least in that you are right.

They ARE cheap to mass produce, which is why FOAM manufacturers love them.

They can make far more on a foam airplane, than they are making on larger foam packaging which is just as simple to produce from the same equipment.

Then we are charged a fortune for cheap stuff.

Foamies would be far better if their costs reflected reality...

Imagine replacing a broken wing for $3.00 on a large EPP foamy! For that I'm in...

But $45.00+ for the same thing?

I'll let the foamy over balsa advocates continue to pay senseless prices for cheap foam thank you.


Are foamies fun? Sure they have their place. I have dozens (yes PLURAL) of them.

Do they fly well? Sure, but they are NOT lighter than Balsa or other materials. Foam has a higher density as it is used to say shape a wing.

My Typhoon 2 is VERY heavy compared to balsa or ply planes of the same size. It's still a "fun" plane to fly though...

Is a foamy cheaper? Nope. Manufactures can use cheap plastic parts in their manufacture and materials we would never tolerate on or kits nor ARFs.

Do foamies hold up better? Nope. They need CF reinforcement to have any hope of holding together. A season or two and any foamie is pretty beat up.
After a dozen years and many hundreds of flights my other planes still look brand new.

Are they "easier" to repair? Nope... gluing two broken pieces together leaving unslightly seams etc. is not a good "repair". It's just a shortcut.

What happens when the manufacturer of the foamy ceases production? With a Fiberglass or Balsa ARF or KIT I can make anything I need quickly. Unless the foamy is made from simple flat boards, you're pretty much out of luck.

Are foamies "better"? No way... people who believe that should try moving up, for the same reasons/ways we try to get beginners to invest in "better" computer radios...

Are they here to "stay"? Sure someone will always buy them.


So:

Cheaper: Nope
Fun: Yes
Lighter: Nope
Stronger: Nope
Hold up: Nope
Easy to repair: Nope
Fly Better: Toss up
Parts: Difficult once out of production
Here to Stay: Yes

Overall Score: Not "better", just another option.

Composits more so IMHO, but repairing them takes a very advanced skill set...

So I favor Fiberglass and Balsa/Ply for my most often flown planes.

Under high wind conditions, out comes my Big Stik....

When the weather is better the other planes come out, and I'll throw a foamie in for a change of pace.