I watch several forums, and I've noticed a seemingly continuous barrage of negative comments about ARFs. This could be the opinions of those who prefer to build kits. Are is it generally accepted that ARFs aren't built as well as kits?

Of the five planes I've owned, the only ARF I've ever owned was the trainer on which I learned to fly and I can tell you that it was BUILT TOUGH! But at the end of the day I have little experience with them.

I have considered acquiring one or two ARFs, possibly the giant P-47 and F4U that World Models (Hangar 9?) is rumored to be preparing for market or the new Great Planes CAP 580, so I have questions. And I would assume that others have the same questions, questions that can be answered only by those qualified to answer them - the pilots who routinely buy and fly ARFs.

1. Are today's ARFs really so bad?
2. Who manufactures and sells the better ARFs?
3. How does one evaluate the quality of an ARF when all you can do is look at it while the lid is off the box on the hobby shop counter?

Magazines Fly RC and Model Airplane News seem to print only glowing reports of the ARFs they evaluate so I question how objective they can be, considering their dependence on advertising revenue.

I would appreciate all comments.

Mike

Just a fe comments. Most of the glow powered ARFS fly very well. In some case the wood is not even balsa and some parts of the plane like the rudder can be warped right out of the box. Some man. are worse than others. H9, Great Planes, World Models, and Seagull make very good ARFs for the price. They have better hardware and the covering is better quality. The hardware included in some of the ARF kits is the weak link(no pun intended). A lot of flyers who buy ARFS know this and simply toss all or most of the hardware away. The wheels that are included are usually on the small side, especially if you are flying off a grass field so you end up replacing thoise as well. The covering on the plane can also be an issue. There is everything from sticky back shelf paper covering to high quality Ultra Coat, depends on the kit. Read carefully before you buy so you know what you are getting. In general the quality is going up and the ARF can be a a very good value.

I think ARF's have come a long way... I always have a kit in the works... I like to build but I fly mostly ARF's.. Really hurts to rekit a kit.. Problem is the kit prices seem to be going up out of site and the ARF's prices are coming down.. I can't build a kit for anywhere near the price of some of these ARF's... 69.00 for the WM ARF's... Hard to beat.. As for quality, I think World Models, Hanger 9, and Great Planes are right up there at the top... From there IMHO you start going downhill quality wise.. With the exception of Vmar I have never had any serious issues with a ARF....

Hi Mike,

As with anything else there are good and bad Arf's even with the really good manufacturers.

I personally have all Arf's so here is what I think of the ones I have

Vectorflight is a very small company and a really limited set of choices but the construction is outstanding and their customer service should be the basis for all other companies. I have their Edge 540 and the wait was worth it.

Great Planes is also very good I have the Super Stearman and Gene Soucy Extra 300 Both are built very well but the Monokote of the Stearman was so severly wrinkled out of the box that between myself and my youngest daughter we spent 12 hours chasing wrinkles. The Extra was fine as far as wrinkles. Both planes needed some strenghtening here and there but not too bad.

Carl Goldberg...I currently have 2 of the Sukhoi SU-26, one with a YS140 and the other with RCIgnitions lightened Zenoah G26. The only thing I did was beef up the landing gear block on both and pin the firewall on the gas powered one. Both cowls were cracked and warped so I had to get new ones but other than those 2 items they are pretty good. I also had their Ultimate 10-300. This plane was perfect. I did absolutely nothing and flew the crap out of it until I sold it to get into larger planes.

Wildhare...I have his Ultimate. Although I have not started on it yet, the construction is excellent and Tom is very good about getting anything that is found to be a problem and fixed out to the people that have bought his planes. I am considering his Edge next.

Kangke... I had the Cap232-120 until just last Sunday. I planted this thing hard due to pilot error. This thing was so well built but really heavy. I made no changes to the plane and used a Roto35vi gas on it. It flew very well and had all of the normal Cap snappiness engineered out of it.

Hangar-9...I have the Funtana90. Out of the box I had to repair cracked ribs in the right wing. I have the first run and from what I hear that has been solved. I also have the Miss America Mustang and typical of retracts I followed MinnFlyers advice and beefed them. I had the Twist 3D and beat the living crap out of it. I did abosultely nothing to it and it took it well. There are problems with it breaking right behind the wing saddle but I never had it.

Sig... I have the 4*60 and had the 4* 40 plus 2 Somerthin' Extra's. I fly/flew the crap out of the 4*'s and the SSE is a tough plane but they were kits so the SSE's don't really count here.

In my experience most Arf's need something strengthened. After reading posts all of RCU Aerowroks seem pretty good. I here differing view on World Models and most bad stuff about VMAR but I hear they are improving.

For me ARF's are the way to good. I liked doing both SSE's but kits are not my thing.

When I elevuate an ARF at the LHS, I look for obvious damage, I look closely at the fuselagemainly around the tail, wing saddle and firewall. I shake the wing panels to see if I hear anything rattling around and probably more that I cannot remember at this point

I also spend allot of time reading posts here on RCU about something I may be considering. I'm doing that right now with Extreme Aircraft Cap 232 1/4 scale bird. So far I have found nothing bad about it. Assemble it and fly it.

I'm pretty new to the hobby, 2 years this month, but I've went through quite a few planes. I don't have the time to build a kit. The ARFs have made this hobby possible and enjoyable to me. I like them, but I don't know anything else. Following are the ARFs I've had. All of them were satisfactory but almost all of them needed a small amount of work.
Hobbico Superstar Trainer (did nothing but fly it)
Hobbico Avistar (did nothing but fly it)
Hanger 9 Ultra Stick 60 (wonderful, fun plane, moved servos to tail for balance, carbon fiber control rods)
Hanger 9 Ultra Stick 40 (Same as above)
Hanger 9 Ultra Stick 120 Lite (Same as above)
Hanger 9 Twist (Nice plane, no modifications except carbon fiber control rods)
Hanger 9 Funtana 90 (The only plane I wish I'd never seen. This is a lousy plane, I modified everything and then finally gave it away)
Great Planes UCD 46 (4) (Usually have to beef up landing gear area after several flights, Fun,Fun plane)
Great planes UCD 60 (2) (Same as above, put carbon fiber control rods on this one)
Sig Mayhem3D (Great flying plane, no modifications at all. Wonderful hardware, except axles)
Extreme Flight Yak 68" (still in box but appears to be a good ARF)

The 3D ARFs are very light. But that is what they are supposed to be. I don't have any problems with how fragile the are. That is why I buy them. To be light and good handling. But with that lightness comes weakness. Sometimes you can beef up a certain area and do a little better (landing gear seems to almost always be a concern)

All in all I love my ARFs. It makes the hobby possible for me. All of the above manufacturers I think do a very good job. I would buy from each of them again.

Thanks,
Barry

Barry, the die hard kit people might argue that a person who has enough time to assemble all those ARFs in 2 years does have time to build a kit, "if he wanted to". However, I'm just ribbing you, I've got plenty of ARFs in my shop. I think people should do what they enjoy in this hobby. If that means flying ARFs exclusively, so be it. I happen to enjoy building kits, but I enjoy flying a variety of planes. I also hate trying to follow a pattern to cover a plane. My kit built planes tend to have simple covering schemes. For me, ARFs work great.

well quality is in the-
hardware- does it look more than adequate for the model. for example did the manufacture give you plastic horns on a 1.20 sized plane!
glue- if you look, dis they use a glue gun? are most if not all joints glued.
wood- do pieces look warped does it have a lot of grain or is it not smooth because of the grain
covering- does it peel easily, does it have wrinkles...etc

The best manufactures are mainly from towerhobbies, h9, wh, dp, qq, ef and chief. If you buy and arf, most of the time if not all you will find that you could rate it anwhere from an 8-10 out of 10. most of the time it will just be bad hardware!

I own a handful of warbird ARF's, and most of them are getting bad rap because they lack scale outlines, and their landing gear and tailwheel are not in scale locations. Plus, they are not as sturdy as kit built warbirds. However, most manufacturers are making improvements, and the newer ARF's are built better and looking more scale.

The real problem with ARF's is the way they are reviewed. With a kit what we were paying for was the quality of the wood and the quality of the die cutting, laser cutting and so forth. With an ARF what we are really paying for now is the quality of construction.

The problem is the reviews of ARF never strip them down to their bear bones and do comments on the quality of the construction. So you end up with a variety of quality from cr_p to pretty good, it depends on the manufactuer. If ARF were reviewed for the quality of constrution as well as flying abiltity, ease of assembly, etc., then this might force the manufacturers to do a better job. No one like to have the quality of their product exposed to the light of day if it is cr_p

1. Are today's ARFs really so bad?
2. Who manufactures and sells the better ARFs?
3. How does one evaluate the quality of an ARF when all you can do is look at it while the lid is off the box on the hobby shop counter?


1.) Depends on who you buys.. In My experience H9 has the best hardware and the easiest build... But I've only built 2 H9's, 2 Gp's... But I've seen/inspected most brands..

2.) I think H9 are the best from what I've seen...Although Greatplanes is right up there too Never owned a DP WH etc.

A picture is worth a thousand words....

Ohh man that really sucks?
looks like you took an axe and chopped it or the firewall thought it was a missle and wanted to fly off. (hey if you are selling the plane let me know, I could use the retracts)

Anyway here is my take on ARFS:
as crappy as they are, they are still 10x better then I could ever build and I don't have the time nor the determination nor the pateints to complete a kit.
So if it wasn't for ARFS, I would not be flying. And lets not forget in these days, its cheaper to put together an ARF then to build a KIT, and thats not including the amount of time you will be saving. Most of the time, small mods can fix many problems people have, and generally the more popular an ARF is the more likely revesions will make it a very reliable plane. E.g. hangar 9, 90 size funtana.

Hey fly and learn and then get luvs... umm no just get a new plane

Looks like it happened on the ground.
Was it on landing or take off?

I have built from kits, scratch built from plans and assembled less than ten ARFs and two ARCs. The most expensive method is scratch building followed by kit construction and than ARFs/ARCs. Your time building equates to a dollar amount don't overlook this when deciding what to purchase.
The quality of kits have been declining for the past twenty years mainly due to a decrease in high quality balsa wood. The airline and liquid petroleum industries buy almost the entire inventory of balsa wood available on a yearly bases. The last kit I purchased was from Dave Plate and it was excellent however costly.
Building from plans requires you to hand select all the wood that is used in the airframe construction. Due to the limited supply and grades selectable this becomes costly and time consuming.
Last but not least are ARFs/ARC. Normally you get what you pay for. It is my opinion that Carl Goldberg sells the best ARF on the market. It excells in construction, covering and flying attributes. All the other ARFs I have assembled could be rated poor or better. To sum it up, buyer beware.

I've seen small electric foamies whose firewalls were attached better than that! What is it, a H9 .60"

GBR2 makes an excellent point in his 2nd paragraph. I think I'll write to Fly RC and Model Airplane News, and suggest that they begin evaluating quality of (1) building materials instead of just the hardware package and (2) airframe construction instead of only the covering job.

Thanks, GBR2.

Mike

This thread has become very interesting!

Mirwin,

Good luck on that, They'll just do like hardware... Where alot of the time JUNK is OK! They're getting paid to make a product look good..

Yeah, I know. Probably a waist of bandwidth or a stamp.

You got it.

This aircraft is not, I'd witnessed a similar in-flight failure, one example is not enough draw a conclusion. I went to the net and was surprised how many were complaining of failed firewalls, then I saw this picture. If you look closely, you can tell the only thing holding the firewall on was the sheeting. I wouldn't trust it to hold a .15 would you? [X(]

I have witnesse similar issue with many reputeably 'quality' ARFs I see at the field, biplane wings ripping out (factory installed cabanes screwed into nothing but sheeting), flying boat engine pods departing the plane (not glued at factory), wing centres failing (cheap luan braces), covering departing the plane in flight etc. etc.

I'm constantly being strung up for ARF bashing but, I'm a big boy, I can live with that. I'm sure many ARFs are safe, I'm also sure, many are not and, as price competition in the market strengthens .... Safety is the real issue.[]

The trouble is, I find you can't even rely on one manufacturer to put out good product, as they all come from different factories all over Asia.

I have an H9 Cub that I consider adequate. Construction seems reasonable and I haven't had any bad failures, but I did notice one of the formers in the front cockpit split, and would have failed if I didn't reinforce it.

But my uncle just got an H9 Alpha trainer and I wasn't happy with it at all. Firewall pulled off when running the engine for the first time. The bolt on tail is a joke, that ripped off too in the same incident where the firewall came off. We glued it all back together, but just looking inside, it's all hot glue, etc. I was teaching him to fly, he got it upsidedown in a turn, I took control and pulled up, and it spun in. I didn't think trainers COULD spin![&:] Let alone a spin from a half throttle dive. It might have been because he only had 8 rubber bands holding the wing on, but that's all the kit included. These are all problems a beginner shouldn't have to deal with.

The Thunder Tigre Rare Bear has some pretty serious structural issues, yet my TT Decathlon is a dream. I DEFY any hardcore kit builder to make a better looking, stronger and/or lighter plane, and the covering job...[X(]

I'll take that challenge ... what's the stakes?