I'm sick of ARF's & RTF's coming with crap components, not having enough glue, having crappy cover jobs, etc.. I Would like to start a list of American Made ARF's & RTF's.

From what I understand, all of the Carl Golberg Models are made in the USA and have excellent reviews.

What kind of car do you drive 4 liter V8 eater?

There may be a some USA made ARF's out there but I haven't heard of any. If Goldberg is, I would be surprised. The problem isn't where it's made, it's what we want to pay. To get a plane that is completely assembled and covered the right way, including good hardware is more expensive, even when dealing with countries with lower labor costs. Unfortunately, I think we would have a difficult time finding a skilled labor force to make good ARF's here. If we did, they would probably be very expensive planes. This is fine for some niche stuff but not the mainstream. The mainstream wants it cheap. Maybe I'm wrong, who knows.

As for ARF quality. Stick with the big names and you'll usually get better stuff (most of it is very, very good in gact). They seem to care a little more about the reputation of their product. Of course, if you really want it done the way you feel is right, build it yourself. I'm not ARF bashing (have 3 of my own right now) but building your own plane is the only way to control every aspect of quality.

Goldberg ARFs are made in China. It says so on the outside of the box. FYI, Goldberg is now owned by Hobbico, but that shouldn't change anything, the Goldberg ARFs have been made in the same Chinese factories as the Hobbico ARFs for several years now.

There may be somebody hand building ARFs in a garage somewhere, but for all practical purposes, there are no ARFs made in the USA.

Jim

Among the best ARF recently seems to CMPro, again China but the "New one", check that,
maybe the best Price/Performance on the market for now, the others seems have been
made in "Old Indo-China-Region".

Here is the link:

http://www.cmpairplane.com/

For a nearby dealer use the 'CMPro' in Google Search.
I am buying from www.lindinger.at and shipment is very friendly.

The problem is that the people working in the ARF plants appear to have little understanding of wood selection. Another problem is they have no experience actually using the models.

They make beautiful, often flawed THINGS for us. As far as they know, if it looks right, it is right.

In the last year, I've had a P40 flutter it's tail because the stab LE was punk wood that should never have been LE stock. The worker who built that stab had a chance to reject that wood. Didn't happen. A Skybolt's firewall was so weak that a nose-in that didn't hurt the fiberglass cowl pushed the motormount through that firewall. There have been three ARFs with maingear that placed the tires almost directly under the CG. An experienced flyer knows model's won't handle properly unless the CG puts weight on the nosewheel. Those workers/designers didn't. One of those ARFs landing gear is located such that there is no way to move the CG back where the model could fly better. Landing gear location shouldn't limit that. A couple of ARFs have absolutely no exhaust openings for the engine cooling air. One entire line of electrics have a plastic box with a tightly closing lid to hold the battery/esc. No cooling whatsoever. And they're 3D. etc etc


We're building Hondas in the US. We're paying US wages. US citizens are the ones doing the work and being paid those wages. As for skills............

A US worker can afford to fly model airplanes for a hobby. It's highly doubtful Chinese workers have even seen model airplanes fly, much less own and fly one. It appears that the Chinese workers have little exposure to the hobby and it's obvious they really don't understand what they're sticking together. It appears they're making Barbie Dolls that fly from their point of view.

Continuing the auto analogy......... The US Honda workers all drive. We have a history of maintaining our own cars. Some even mess with cars for fun. US made Hondas could be the best built cars in the world for the price. Chinese made ARFs are some of the prettiest things made. But they're very, very often fatally flawed. It's time we got across to the US companies selling them that they need just a little better QA. Either do it over there or over here, but quit selling flawed pretty things.

Hi Guys,

It is a free international market, so do you think you can affect that; there is no simple
easy neither fast way to do that indeed, it might take at least 10 years more.

The prices are set by the buyers and unless you educate them to not buy expensive
junk, I do not see any other way. On the other hand I do not know any meeting or
a contest where the people compete in Performance-vs-Price, is there any thing
like that ? Of course all fellows usually show how much more superior flashy thing
they have got and theer the story goes ... to more junk being sold out for people
who cannot afford even in developed world paying N x 1000 or more for a good ARF.

Question: - Why not All-Glass-fiber Automated High-quality production line is installed
anywhere for size of RC planes for the small-and-big-enough .91 engines ?
I see the guys arround building themselves those good things at home, but in
the shops is mostly balsa, which is needing the low-cost Far East labour ?

Anyway I think this discussion might be more successful if takes in focus some
most popular models, RCU has got the statistics who are those ones, and then
one can tell how he would make it cheaper and better, OK ?

Cheers,
Nick

Check out planes like the Composite-ARF planes.

Most are made in molds in the U.S.

Their workmanship is impeccable. No covering. The paint scheme is molded in.

However you are normally dealing with larger ( and much better ) planes that START in the GAS engine range and go up from there.

There is an higher associated cost, but you can get started with these planes for around 500.00 for the ARF's.

What makes you think Composite ARF aircraft are U.S. made?

The Composite-ARF main office is situated in Hong Kong:

CARF Models Ltd.
15th Floor, Tern Centre, Tower1,
237 Queens Road Central, Hong Kong

The Composite-ARF aircraft are built in their Thai factory, which is quite a long way away from the U.S.:

G-Force Composites Co., Ltd.
24 Ruamitr Road, Choengnoen, Muang
Rayong 21000, Thailand

Their managing director is a German, Andreas Geitz

Well, I guess all this makes sense. I just did the calcs, and if I were to spend 30 hours building a plane from scratch it would cost $964. Not to mention the cost of union benefits such as healthcare(reference to GM). I guess we better leave it up to the Chinese. I only wish they could build them as nice as I would. My first plane I built from a kit when I was 13 and it is 10x more durable than all the chinese ARF's I've seen.

Composite ARF's are beautiful planes, but now that I know thay are made in china and are way less labor intensive than wood planes I am a loss as to why they are so g-d expensive.

As I stated above they are NOT made in China, but Thailand.

In fact I do not see what is so much wrong with CMPro, which looks like the small "brother" of
Composite ARF ?

Have you got any of CMP models and if yes, what you do not like for example in the new versions of
those, for example look at the "old" and "new" Cessna = within one year the quality of the construction
and parts has gone very much up. I do not see that quality comming at that price from Great Planes
if I compare the GP-Lancair and CMP-Lancair for example.

I guess the High-Prices we pay for the other RC models on the market. Immagine if Tower Hobbies or more exactly Hobbico
drops in the Shops tomorrow the prices of the ARF with 50% down to the price the average Shop-keeper pay to the Distributor,
then Composite ARF will start droping the prices very nicely too. Still now Price goes pretty well releated to Quality indeed.

Only hope I see in Indo-China getting faster over the RC Market and then the current "balsa junk" from the shops
will dissapear or get to its real price of some 10x less than now.

Maybe it is better to weight couple years prior buying your next ARF ...

If you are not satisified with the product don't buy it.
That is the only way anything will ever change.

My bad...

I thought I had read an article on the molding process in a mag recently which showed a U.S. fabrication plant.

It must have been another company then.

That was originally the point of this post: I wanted to buy something that would support my economy, yet hopefully be of better quality. I am kind of shocked that in the country that buys most of this stuff, there is no one producing ARF kits. Not even composite ones.

BVM makes an [link=http://www.bvmjets.com/JetKits/ultra_bandit/ultra.htm]jet ARF[/link] in the US

Price is $10,750[:@] Think I go chinese (and there are several chinese jet arf manufcaturers, so the trend do include al price levels inthe hobby)

Check out [link=http://www.fbjets.com]Fei Bao[/link] or [link=http://www.skymasterjet.com]Skymaster[/link] or [link=http://www.jetlegend.com/]Jet Legend[/link]

[8D]I've assembled (don't want to get flamed by the people that go nuts when you use the word built in conjunction with ARFs) several Chinese ARFs and one Vietnamese ARF. Although I've had some problems if I've take care I've ended up with a good product that has flown well and lasted long enough if I avoided vertical landings. I think that the reason they sell well is they provided adaquate value. Places like RCU allow modelers to be alerted to many of the poor brands and this exchange of information helps improve the marketplace. I know that there are several brands I avoid, but I think that not all Asian ARFs are bad news. Building in the USA does not automatically cure the problems if you remember the early Lanier ARFs.

Assembling a Goldberg Skylane 70...VERY high quality construction! Where is it made? Check out the picture.... and the second pic shows some of the quality construction...

Check this link of CMPro:
http://www.cmpairplane.com/
for example
http://www.cmpairplane.com/aerobatic...40%20Size.html
and the picture below

I'm with Tailskid, I have just built a Goldberg Skylark 70 too (Skylark is the correct name. he said skylane) I also just built their Protégé and the quality of wood, workmanship and covering is the best I've ever seen - and I've seen a LOT

It is quite expensive, more than 2x than CMPro's similar sizes and it is not even
a scale ? With respect to your experience, let me ask please why we should pay
twice more ?

By the way, here is what some other USA guys talk
on RCU about CMPro - quite exciting talks and Photos:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_6065502/tm.htm

In fact there seems to be "somebody" and "somehwere" maybe in USA who makes what is sold on
http://www.nitroplanes.com/la5261nigasp.html
and that costs ony 99 USD; how that is possible ?

Do you know who is the maker and if I can buy this in Europe?
(Nitroplanes do not ship ourside USA this size.)

Cheers,
Nick

You missed the point of his post.

He was responding to the original poster's request. The original poster was specifically looking for planes made in the U.S.

This has nothing to do with the associated costs nor that there are other sources as you have stated.