After building quite a few ARF models, i got fed up with them and i am going back to Kit building and later on to building from scratch (plans).I would appreciate your opinion on what you DO NOT like about ARFs. Furthermore, i would like your opinion on ARFs V Kits or ARF v Scratch building.

I dislike the fact that EVERY arf looks the same... I could look at my sig extra 300, and it's cool. Go to an airshow and see 10 others, and they're all the same. Arf's look pretty darn good, but if everthing is covered the same way, then nothing really stands out of the rest of the crowd. IMO

As far as ARF vs Kit, I like kits much better, but the industry made everything to finish a kit so expensive now that in the end you pay just about as much but put so much more time and effort (for the most part) into a kit built plane.

I think my case may reflect the position of a lot of other modelers out there. First, to answer your question, the problems I have with ARF kits are "all of the above". I am a bit of a perfectionist and I rarely find that an ARF meets my expectations - I have experienced at least one of the problems listed in all of my ARF kits. Having stated that, I have a "warehouse" of NIB ARFs in my basement along with some kits. I am not retired, I have a job, a house, kids......you know the story. I have very little time for building - let alone flying. I would like nothing more than to be able to kit or scratch build all of my planes and even have time left to fly them, but that just isn't going to happen - at least not in the near future. As a result, I like the idea of building ARFs to keep me flying while I take my time building kits. I should state here that I have not built a kit in a long time and I plan on getting back into this in the near future once I get a couple more ARFs together for my hangar. Heck, I don't even have enough time to get my ARFs together! ARFs in general have come a long way and I feel that they represent a very good value for your dollar (in most cases) so I am not going to bash them - they are here to stay I will always have some of them around. I have always been good with wood and fabricating things so I get a lot of enjoyment and "therapy" in building something like a kit. For that reason, I am hoping that I can get back to kit building soon while I fly my ARFs around.

Steve

Metric hardware and cheap chinease pot metal pushrod material.

Was this just a TROLL, or did you think it appropriate to post to the ARF-RTF forum? Nobody who´s posted yet sounds like an ARF consumer. Perhaps a move to the kitbuilder´s or scratchbuild forum would be appropriate?

Best wishes,
Dave Olson

Nothing

The Kits I have assembled were OK
Including but not limited to:
Sig Extra 300XS
GP Patty Wagstaff Extra 300
Chip Hyde CapX

All went together well ... fly well

I'm a happy ARF'er

I do mostly ARF's and find most of them to be OK.
The thing I dislike most is "shelf paper" covering, lack of glue, hardware and ABS plastic.
When a model is supplied with retracts they are usually for "show" only because they don't work worth beans.
I think VQ has the right idea, they build most of their planes ready for YOUR retracts to be installed and if World, Hangar-9, Great Planes and others did the same we would all be happier.
There is a big variety of ARF's now and more coming and their getting better all the time and some are even coming with brand name hardware, wheels and fuel tanks. VQ has a P-61 Black Widow coming and their A-26 is a great flier, KMP has a Cessna 337 on the market and soon to release a B-25 so there are all kinds of goodies to be had.
Even if the ARF i'm "building" is a good one, I alway's make a mod or two, don't YOU?

Keep em comin.

I only do ARFs (no time or enough patience to build). My biggest complaint is crappy metric hardware and the horrible grade of the metal products used. For the most part the wood used is good, there is usually enough glue everywhere except at the firewall and landing gear plate, the covering is better than what I can do, and overall construction is better than most of the kit built planes I have seen. And every new ARF from the major players seem to get better than the last.

if you spend enough, ARF are great ... Check out WorldModels, or Hirobo .. I have 90-1.20 sized patern planes from both manufacturers, and they are top in quality, i had a WM midget mustang that had a 90 with a pipe on it, and i could not manage to make the plane fail no matter how hard i tried .. as for Jets, look at the BVM KingCat, or the line of ARF jets from AirPac .. cant be beat !!! I have had arfs from Great planews and Top flite that i am very happy with also ... oops, i forgot to mention Yellow Aircraft .. both their warbird and jet arfs are super !

now there are arfs that suck too !! like anything from giant scale planes, or cermark. I would also stay away from hobbico .. their spectrum was a great flying plane, but the lack of glue, and propper wood made it suck ! I have seen some of the Composite ARF 3m type planes, and they look and fly great ! however i have their Rookie jet, and it required a lot of mods for me to feel safe with it ..


bottom line is , you get what you pay for ..


Wojtek

Personally I am a big fan of the ARF concept. However not all ARF companies are alike. Some seem to care about the quality of the craftsman ship they put into their planes (such as the Aeroworks Edge 540T in my experience) and others just mass produce their plane to maximize their company profit (such as the Ultra Stick). I have built a few kits and like the fact that I was able to tweak what i think needed tweaking where you could not do that with and ARF, but those planes spent many months in the hangar (my basement) before they were airborne. All in all it really depends on the company that builds the plane.

-Matt

I have never had a bad arf. I'm sure if I keep buying them, I'll get a bad one just as I would eventually get a bad kit. I hear so much about how shoddy arfs are. I just don't see it. I think if a person does a little research, he will be ok just as in everything else. We have a couple of people who love to bash arfs at our field. Neither of them are very good pilots. I think the two sort of go hand in hand (bad pilot - arf basher). That's been my experience anyway.

Several Arfs I have built:

Lanier Predator - Wing was warped, firewall fell out, wing hold down block insufficient

Sig Extra 300xs - Hinge setup no good, terrible wheels, Paint comes off plastic fairing on tail, Horribly wrinkled covering.

Hangar 9 Corsair - suspect retracts, covering trim loose at edges, weak firewall, mostly good.

World Models Mustang - one of the best, other than weak retracts that need to be bent straight all the time.

World Models Chipmunk - Very good, other than bad retracts similar to the Mustang.

Kyosho Spitfire - Excellent other than the fact that the prepainted covering is not fuel proof and the edges lift over time.

Kyosho Gee Bee Z - Also Very good, but the landing gear blocks in the wing come loose eventually, and tricky to land.

All in All, I think I've agreed to not buy any more arfs. Kits only !!!

I have built and flown models now for 30 plus Years, with the exception of the last 5 years of buying ARFs. I personally think that ARFs are a great way to go, sure some have better quality than others but all in all they all have great value for the money, and you can fly them like you stole them, it just don't matter. If you make a smoking hole with it, go out get another just like it and in a few short hours your back in the air. When you spend 6 months to a year and 1/2 building one, you tend to fly it like your handling your first born baby. Heaven forbid something happens and this extension of your weary sole hits the ground

Bob Sawyer

ABS cowls and wheelpants are a joke, especially the ones that you have to put together. The coverings on most of the ARF's I assemble are pretty good, but some simply suck. Like someone said earlier, an ARF is an ARF, but since some are more expensive than others, you get what you pay for.

The next time one of those guys bash an ARF, tell them if they would spend as much time in the air as they did in the shop building, that maybe they could fly a bit better. Sure, they "may" have a plane that's built just a tad bit more solid than an ARF, but who cares. If they can't fly it worth a crap, what's the sense in them even building it.

I have built/assembled & flown a number of ARF's in recent years:

2 Hobbico Superstars
2 Hobbico Avistars
Hobbico Nexstar
GP Ultra Sport 40
Blackhorse Spitfire

All have some short commings that could be troublesome to a beginner, but if you are an experienced builder they are truly trivial issues & can quickly be spotted & corrected before assembly -- the most prevalent physical weakness area being the firewall assembly.

The Hobbico trainers have been hacked & bashed about by students (10 & 12 yrs respectively for the Superstars), but all are still in service, despite the brutal treatment -- who says Hobbico stuff is junk? -- it just ain't so.

The Ultra Sport 40 is a joy to own & fly.

The Blackhorse Spit needed pre-flight mods to the stab & elevator, but that having been done, it flies beautifully & is as tough as a rock.

ARFs have a valid place in the modelling world. I suspect that much of the anti-ARF yapping comes from individuals who have never had one, or are from raw beginners who were not able to effectively deal with the sometimes-poor instructions & inevitable repairs.

i do not think that bashing ARFs or KITs is the way to go.....both have advantages and disadvantages. And yes, it is true that not that many modelers who are good builders are also competent fliers, but this also works vice versa. Furthermore, most people who spend 1+ year building a high value (probably scale) aircraft are more likely to have an experienced pilot at the controls and.....an aircraft engineer standing by!

The only bad ARF is one I can't afford!

Andy

my main dislike is the hardware which i always throw away,apart from vmar that is when all of the contents should be thrown away!as for the couple of gripes about metric hardware get real,the metric system is all around us now and i'm afraid that even the u.s. will use it within 30 years,after all,us brits invented the imperial system and even we have to use metric now!

Your very right about spending too much time building and not enough flying, that's why they invented "Team Scale" for all the big contest's.

I am not an accomplished builder so most ARF's are probably better than what I could build. I am not great at covering either and every ARF I ever had was covered nicer than I could do. I still build kits in the winter just to have something to tinker with when I can't fly. Maybe someday I will be good enough at building to bash an ARF but until I can do better I will not say anything bad about them and just fly.
One thing I will say about a kit is that it is a good feeling to take a box full of wood that looks like nothing and turn it into a plane and watch it fly for the first time. I don't get that same rush from an ARF.

WCB

You forgot poor scale outline and tiny, undersized wheels that come with ARF's. Why is it so difficult to give a scale ARF accurate scale outline?

ONE WORD

ULTRACOTE[>:]

Absolutely NOTHING wrong with ARFs. Even the worst ARF (VMAR) is still better than anything I could or want to spend time building. If it wasn't for ARFs, I wouldn't be in this hobby.

I built my first four airplanes and got each one better, straighter and lighter. The ARFs have been the same. each year they seem to get better. I just bought a u-can do 60 for under $150 shipped to my door, a great aircraft for less than I could buy the parts to build it, let alone get it straight. Long live ARFs!