Hi, I am cack handed, but I was wondering if kits can suit all sorts of people, eg 1st timer's, cack handers etc. . What are the differences from ARF and Kits?

Do you mean you are left-handed, clumsy, or both? There is nothing inherently right-handed about building. I am just getting back into the hobby after a very long absence. I have a lot of experence from a time when kit instructions were sparse indeed. I have looked at a lot of modern kits and things seem to have improved quite a bit for the top tier of the consumer kits. I have decided to go with Sig and Bruce Tharpe for my return to construction fun. They get high marks for quality and clarity. If you have never built anything fragile like balsa planes, you might look at building a few rubber powered, free flight planes first. They are smaller, more delicate and require some good techniques to build into a flyable thing. But they are much less expensive. MAN sells a couple of into to building type books that you might want to check out before you invest heavily into some project.

When I was really into this, building was the hobby, flying was just an extra topping on an already delicious desert. Whatever you decide to do, just enjoy it.

As for ARF vs Kit, here is a typical description of each.

Kit - you get a set of plans, instruction book, and lots of parts that are typically cut out or laser cut from balsa, balsa sticks, some plywood parts etc. You then proceed to buld up each structure - fuselage, wings, rudder and elevator from these parts. After this is done the pieces are covered, radio gear, engine, control rod hook-ups, etc are installled and the plane is ready to go.

To build a kit, you will need some tools (model knife, ruler, straight edge, sanding blocks, square, triangles etc), glues (CA - very fast, or carpenters glue, epoxy for firewall, wing center joint) and covering (typically an iron-on polyester that comes precolored, a covering iron, etc).

Going with a kit can take a considerable time to get to a ready-to-fly condition - this totally depends on your building skills.


ARF - these come as a set of pre-assembled and covered items - fuselage, wing (typically in 2 pieces), rudder, elevator. Construction is minimized compared to a kit. Typically it consists of joining the wing halves, installing the engine, fuel tank and radio gear in the fuselage, attaching the elevator and rudder to the fuselage, then installing control surface push rods.

The ARF goes together a lot quicker (5 - 20 hours depending on your skill level). So you will be ready to get in the air quicker than with a kit.

A major difference is that if (when) you ding your trainer, if it was built from a kit, you will have the skills to repair it. If it is an ARF, you will be looking at the repair process with limited experience.

I am sure others will jump in and expand on this - I am trying to keep my reply reasonably short, but hopefully with enough information so you can ask some more questions as needed.

Take care,

Cack handed must be a regional (southern?) term, that I've never heard before. I assume you mean clumsy.

Kits can be built by pretty much anyone with a bit of building and/or mechanical apptitude. You don't have to be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist.

But as has been said, kits take considerably more work than an ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) or RTF (Ready to Fly).

An RTF might take 2 to 4 hours from box to flight ready (plus battery charging), an ARF 20 to 40 hours depending on skill, a kit could easily take 200 or more hours, again depending on skill and the kit you choose.

Not sure what info you're really looking for though.
Dennis-

Check out this thread.

http://rcuniverse.com/showthread.php...722&forumid=22

Building your trainer from a kit can be very informative, and you will definately learn more by building a kit versus an ARF, plus you'll be ahead of the game when you crash, since you built the plane and know how it should go back together. You'll also discover that you have all of the tools and skills to do so.

I fly at a field in west tx, where it is calm all day until time toget off work. Then wham bam it blows upwards of 15 mph. My instructor is of the opinion that learning to fly in lots of wind will better prepare me for solo. What is too much wind? Will learning to fly in wind help me in the long run? Thank you all for your time in answering this question.

tazz

I believe you should learn to fly in wind, but for starters, keep it to 10 mph or so- a little more if it's blowing right down the runway. If you don't learn to fly in the wind, you'll only fly when it's calm out, plus wind can be fun!

Definitely learn to use your rudder when flying, especially on takeoff and landing. If your instructor doesn't do much rudder work, find another. The key to flying in wind is coordinated rudder and aileron inputs, especially when landing.

Do a search on wind, crosswind, and landing on this forum and you'll find more information than you can read. Good luck and have fun