I have seen the acronyms ARF and ARC. I know ARF = "almost ready to fly" but what is ARC and how does it differ from ARF?

Thanks

ARC = almost ready to cover.

You get a framed up plane w/ no covering. Needs to be prepped before covering and offers you the opportunity to be creative with your covering. Speaking of which, did you see thread on the American Flag covering instructions? Excellent. Do a search for "American Flag" and I'm sure it'll come up.

Are you sure it isn't "Almost Ready to Crash"

Just kidding.

I thought all planes had that distinction.

The ARC market never materialized, so I don't think there are many (if any) commercially available ARC's. For me, covering the plane is the time-consuming (and difficult) part, so ARC's never made sense to me and apparently the market agrees.

My wife said to me: "Can you get planes that are built and just need to be covered?" So started the research......
Apparantly, she liked the rolls of blue and gold Ultracote that were sitting next to each other on the LHS shelf.....

If you want a small sport plane, about the only thing readily available now is a Thunder Tiger profile. It available in two color schemes or uncovered for $10 less.... Ace Hobby I think...

There are a number of large aerobatic planes that come as ARC's, try Giantscaleplanes for some samples....

Next (agin on the wife's advise), I took a look at ebay....... there were a grand total of 3 planes on offer...
As a result of all this I am now the proud (?) owner of a Modeltech Great Lakes Bipe shortly to be winging its way to me via United Plane Smashers...

After all that, my wife now say I can choose my own color scheme [X(] I'm still thinking of blue with a yellow sunburst pattern.

I've had enough of invisible white ARF's on a cloudy day...

"The ARC market never materialized, so I don't think there are many (if any) commercially available ARC's. For me, covering the plane is the time-consuming (and difficult) part, so ARC's never made sense to me and apparently the market agrees. "

The ARC market is alive and well, there are many ARC planes available. Most of them are large aerobatic models. You dont see it advertised as much but a lot of of the major aerobatic companies offer them in ARF, ARC, and a solid color option. The reasoning behind ARC in this market is that if you use your plane to compete you dont want it to blend in with the other ones out there. It allows you to use your own creativity and since the chinese kids still havent gotten covering down to a science then it allows you to do a better job (considering you can cover halfway good)

They do, but those initials were to good to pass up.[8D]