The thing that I like the most about scratch building is that your only limit is your imagination. There are literally hundreds of plans available for everything from basic trainers, advanced trainers, sport, scale etc. models available. Materials are easily obtainable, everything from traditional balsa and ply to exotic foams and composite materials. There is also a ton of information available via the internet on building techniques. This leads me to beleive that scratch building could be easier now then ever before especially when you add in a few club members that have experience to share. Like others here, I have been at this for quite a while and not only enjoy scratch building but designing as well. My first successful design scratch build was in 1981. The latest is pictured here and I call it " Divergent " and is an F3A pattern airplane. It's difficult to describe the sense of accomplishment when a design performs as expected.