xplayer930

It seems these days that more and more people fly arf's. Hardly anyone builds kits any more. i hear exscuses from people that they have no time. I tell them i dont either but i still find a few hours on a sunday night to build. I feel that flying is only 40% of the fun, building is was really give ya a challenge. Im not sayin ARF's suck. I have 3 of them my self, im just sayin that we as modelers so go back to the roots of model planes, when it took skill to assemble a plane. One reason why i bough my GP super skybolt was cuz most the guys at my field are ARF guys, and i new they would drool whe they saw my plane come rollin up in the pitts!!!

TomCrump

I'm afraid the model builders are a dying breed. Kit manufacturers are falling by the wayside. Soon we'll have to build only from plans or rely on private kit cutters.

DavidAgar

My Feedback: (108)

I have to agree. I am a kit builder die hard, yet the selection of kit's is dwindling in favor of the ARF'S. I have built 2 ARF'S now and while they are nice planes, they do not give me the same satisfaction as complting a kit. The lack of time seems to be the issue and the ARF cost has come down so much and the quality is getting better on them, ARF's are here to stay. Anyway, off to the garage, I have a kit to finish. Dave

cknaack

My Feedback: (1)

While ARF's are certainly gaining popularity, I would not term the decline in kit building as "dying". The fact is that for many people, spare time is in short supply, and ARF's help people utilize their time "better", if flying is the highest priority. For me, building and flying are both high priorities. I have a few ARF's in the stable, but I certainly will give someone a strange look when they complement me on my "really nice" ARF. It is like taking credit for someone elses work. After all, I just glued the finished parts together.

I think ARF's are here to stay, and I don't blame the manufacturers for going where the money is, but building will live on..........................at least in my shop.

IowaSilvia

My Feedback: (97)

I think we are dying. I asked a question about a CG Sukhoi and no one has yet to answer it. Kits are awesome and they really make you walk with your head held high when your finished. Especially when you scratch one out.

I even posted a question in the "question answer" area about Laser Cutting. I was wondering if if would be a good thing to buy a Laser Cutter and start designing kits and cutting them out for myself and others. No one has really answered besides someone saying that they cost around 10grand and i'd need a big one to do kits and that I would have to sell a ton of kits to pay for it.

I tell you what. 10 grand isn't to bad really. If I could design and kit a plane and say sell a kit for $75 a pop. That means I'd need to sell around 150 to cover it. Sheesh.. How many Morris The Knifes have been sold? How many Taco's and Burittos and Sledges have been sold. I know there is other expenses such as hardware and packaging for these kits, but still. There has to be money in making these profile kits. There ain't nothing too them really. I've designed one on CAD 14 and took a couple nights work. It's not rocket science................

Sorry for babling ..

I've got a CG Sukhoi to build. yah

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

The way I see it, Flying is a Sport, Building is a Hobby.

Some of us ENJOY building, and we always will, so no, we're not dying out, but MANY others are getting into the Sport because they no longer have the hurdle of HAVING to build a plane to get started.

Fubar-One

My Feedback: (1)

Maybe its just a phase. I have been in the hobby only a few years now and enjoy both kits and ARF's. Granted I prefer flying to building but I do enjoy building. There does seem to be fewer and fewer kits available tho. I have found myself haunting Ebay, buying OOP kits and stashing them away for when I have time to build em. I have built the obligatory Gentle Lady, of course plus the Goldberg Electra. They both flew well but it wasnt till I built a Tower Hobbies Kaos that I got the building bug. I think I got the last kit too as they discontinued it within a month of my purchase and came out with the ARF. Same thing with the Uproar although it is still available as a kit.
I have since got my hands on two GP Super Kaos kits, another Tower Kaos kit, a Bridi Utter Chaos and a Killer Chaos also.
I just finished building a Super Sportster 20 and have a second partially built (was given to me) SS 20 kit, an SS 40 kit w/twin engine conversion plans, and an SS Bipe.
Even have an original RCM Sportster 20 kit stashed away.
Have a pile of other kits put away for when I can retire since kits are becoming hard to find, at least kits I seem to be interested in. Hedging my bets as it were!
Hopefully, kits will make a comeback and the variety will increase. I am also buying plans for the time I get ambitious and decide to try my hand at that.

brschmid

all i know is i am getting a Sig 4*40 kit for christmas and it is gonna be my project over much of the break

nitrobasher

My Feedback: (2)

well im 15 and just bought my first kit and love it, thats all i will buy from now on, if that makes ya feel any better lol.

IowaSilvia: I would Deff. buy em if you made em. i think that would be awesome. you could probably charge a lot more to for custom designs.

p.s. even if the kits do start to discontinue that means that the prices will go down[:-]

HighPlains

My Feedback: (1)

I think that we are approaching the golden age of kits. In the past, manufacturers had to make thousands of kits in order to recover the costs of design and packaging of a kit.

But, with CAD/CAM it raises the possibility of truly custom kits. If you want a particular scale airplane, the computer can rescale and direct the cutting of component parts. If you want a design from 50 years ago, once it is digital, then it will be easy to manufacture one or 100.

There are small kit manufacturers that are starting down this path.

egor

Welllllll My .02 I like kits better than arf's. The people I fly with will testify to the fact that I build better than I fly. I've seen to many arf's come apart in the air. Right now I'm in the process of building two 4 * 60's from plans and modifing a set of plans for an lt-40 Yup it's a trainer, but I want to give it some shape and get rid of the square corners give it a cowl and see what I come up with. Who knows.

Egor

taildragger01

My Feedback: (10)

Hi. If you guys don.t mind the rambelings of a old fart that has been buildig and flying for about 30 odd years , then lend an ear,,,,, I am now working on two kits A Ziroli SBD Dauntless 100"WS and a royal B17 83"WS. I love the buildig and wont stop untill I go blind witch at this rate will be soon LOL. but I do enjoy flying too so I keep a couple of arf,s in the hanger for weekends. once in a wile I,LL take some of the planes I buld out and let them show there stuff. but at a couple of thousand per plane I would rather put a 200.00 ARF in the dirt rather than one of my show birds. ARF,s are good for the hobby. they get a lot of the newbys out to the fields and for the guy that don,t have the time or the bucks it,s a cheap way to fly. We kit builders will allways be around and the manufactures will keep puting the kits out. Some of you guys got your wings on the old COX .49,s and I guess you could call them ARF,s and I cut my teeth on the old comet and gillows tishew and stick modles. and then my first Sig with a craft TX sys,. these ARF flyers of today just might be tomarows kit builders.

Sense963

My Feedback: (10)

My 2 cents on kits... I'm 41, been building since I was 10 (control line back then) and it's what I love. The day I buy an ARF, well, I just can't see it. I HOPE I will always have the ability to build better than an ARF, and I love being able to do what I want in every phase of construction. Plus, I really enjoy the satisfaction of seeing everything come together as I saw it in my mind's eye when I was drooling over the box.
ARF's are here to stay, however. The quality has vastly improved, and if just flying is your thing, then it's probably for you. I can't judge anyone for how they get their kicks in this hobby, so if ARF's bring you to the field, you like sitting around scratching and telling lies, then grab a chair and join in.
But.... Everyone should have the pride thing kick in one day when the box of balsa and a set of plans is now racing around doing what you want, and you did it from start to finish... That's how I get MY kicks.

GrnBrt

My Feedback: (5)

Well my odometer is getting ready to turn 60 and I have been doing this hobby since 1954! I have done more kits then I want to remember and that's what I plan on doing till I either die or go blind, oh wait a minute something else causes that! I saw the writing on the wall about 10 years ago and started collecting my stash of kits which numbers somewhere around 40 at last count and have a gazillion plans. Yes I feel the hobby has made a major turn and that ARF's are the way it will now go but we will always have kits, just not like we use to. I don't buy this I don't have the time, heck even a 30 minute span of building will get a plane done. a friend of mine is a Ob/Gyn and he's doing a 1/5th spitty, nope you can if you really want to find the time to build. when we only had kits we were busy also but still found the time. Go with what jingles your bell but I do feel like the true builder is slowly going the way of the dinasaur.
Here's what I am working on now, Goldberg ultimate.

Safebet

My Feedback: (12)

I am new to R/C. I purchased a ARF in October, got mid-aired on first flight, so I purchased an identical one. I have been repairing the first, fuselage broke in half and some wing damage. I still haven't got to fly due to weather and work, but I have spent many hours kworking on the smashed one. I purchased a Great Plain Super Decathlon 40 on E-bay and received it today. When I opened the box I found the original catalog date 1991.

The reason I purchased it was because as a adolescent I built plastic "Revell models" and one or two control line models. Remember, Dope and tissue paper? Looking back I think I got "high" and didn't know it. My mom sure hated the smell. While repairing this ARF I noticed I would lose all track of time and I felt so relaxed, was so absorbed I forgot all the things that tend to make me look upon life as a boring trip to nowhere. Same old thing. I decided I wanted to continue having that "quiet time" working on something that makes me feel proud and relaxed and forget work, stress, bills, kids and their problems and just be in my own space for awhile. I have noticed that it has even changed my temperment when Im not working on it, for the better. It's crazy, but it seems to rest me physically and mentally.

I am 60 now, and it has been many years since I have assembled a kit, but I just can't wait. I am going to get started as soon as I get a good work surface built. I hope we can continue to get kits, and I think we will,
because it is great. Such satisfaction, I'm sure, when it is finally completed. Gonna be kinda tough to fly it the first time, but I have to learn to fly the trainers first, so I have time.

islandflyer

I started with kits 26 years ago; I am quite meticulous (some say "obsessive") about my models, and I had plenty of time and space to built lots of models. But I am also a compulsive low altitude aerobatic flyer, so all the planes I have built in those days, that were not sold or given away, have been crashed.
In the past 5 years, I have built 3 kit, crashed one from flutter, sold the other two to get into bigger planes. All the other planes built in the last 5 years have been ARFs (13 of them).
Now the reason: TIME, SPACE, and $.
Unlike when I was younger, I work full time, and when I get home, my wife and 2 children want my attention.
Because of having a family, I also no longer have a space where I can safely leave my model-in-progress overnight. With the three .40 size models I did build, I saw how much additional work it was to put all my stuff away after whatever short building session I could get. That clearly not be possible with the giant scale aerobatic planes I now like to fly.
Finally, most of the ARFs I bought would cost more if I added up the cost of the kit, glues, covering material, matching paint, hardware and accessories.
I love building; and flying the model I built is even better! Ideally, I will retire some day, and my children will have their own houses and families, and will build again, and fly what I built. But for now I build ARFs, and week-ends are for flying them.[8D][8D]
Maybe it would be different is I didn't live in Hawaii; like when I learned to fly in Portland-ORE, I had the whole rainy winter for building!!!

kregan

One of my other hobby's is building a Model Railroad.

The same debate about kits vs RTR (ready to run) rages
on in the Model Railroad hobby. Kits are starting to go
away, not as fast as airplane kits, but they are fading.

Personally I build all my MRR stuff from kits or scratch,
and I can not bring myself to purchase an ARF. After
joining my first club (about 2 months ago) I have seen
way to many arf's breaking apart for one reason or
another.

I can see the benefit of ARF's and with a 3 year old and
5 month old twins I have been tempted to purchase one,
however I would insist on a Almost ready to Cover so I
could check the work, and add glue if needed.

CRFlyer

I disagree with the argument that people make that they don't have time to build, so they get ARF's and fly them. The problem with the argument is that they are finding the time to fly but not build. However, these same people often are not out flying during the winter months, so building can be done then. Also, If you have everything laid out in your workshop, it's easy to stop in and do a step or two and go on to something else. This is what I do, since I am busy as well, but Modeling is my hobby. That includes both building and flying.

DamonTX

I've got no problem with ARFs but I do have a problem with the slimming selection of kits available today. I'm currently building my 67th airplane (there are 3 ARFs in there) and it used to be that every year there were new kits to look forward to. Last night I went onto Tower looking for my next kit project but only found fun flys. I'm not in the mood to scratch build my next airplane so I started looking around. With no luck on the big websites, I started searching and found several small unknown (to me) companies that seem to be trying to fill the void.

I gues my point is we don't have 20-30 black & white pages full of kits in the Tower catalog anymore but if you look hard enough you might catch on to an upcoming Sig or Balsa USA type company.

Spad_man

My Feedback: (8)

This company has nice kits! http://www.ikonnwst.com/

BuzzBomber

My Feedback: (4)

Here's my commentary: I'm relatively young (27), and can't remember the days before ARFs were available. I have however, been a model nut my entire life, be it r/c, control line, ff, or static. Same goes for a close friend of mine. Both of us have been in r/c for a long time, and will continue to be in the hobby for a long time. Both of us would prefer to build from a kit than fly an ARF anyday, unless we've crashed our last plane and need a quick flying fix. The nice thing about kits (and the point that makes some buy ARFs), is that you, as the builder, are solely reponsible for the success for failure of the project. If there's a design deficiency, or an opportunity to lose weight, add a hatch, etc, that's up to you. If the engine parts company with the plane on maiden because the firewall was hot-glues, well, that's your fault......see where I'm coming from? There are a few other young guys and kids who fly around here, and they all either build from kits, or envy our kit/plans built planes and swear they will build someday. IMO, a significant number of the sales of ARFs are to hobby transients--the guys who hang around a year or two, and either give up when they can't learn to fly, or get bored and drop out. Some of these new guys stick around and build only ARFs; some go on to build kits. So, it could be argued that ARFs bring a lot of 'undesireables' out to the flying field--people who have no long term interest and serve to clog the flightline for a few months. Conversely, it could be argued that the lowered cost (emotionally and financially) of ARFs bring a lot of positive influence to the hobby, by allowing newbies to join in with less commitment and allowing grizzled veterans an opportunity to cut loose occasionally without worrying about a prize posession. You tell me whether it's good or bad. Now that I've gone off on tangent for a while, lets get back (sorta) to the original topic. No, I don't *think* kit builders are a dying breed. However, I fear that the days of the large kits manufacturers may be waning, ie Goldberg, Sig, Great Planes. I hope not. On the positive side, the hobby appears to be in a renaissance of cottage industry--outfits like Top Creations RC, Northeast Aero Design, Mountain Models, and Stevens Aero to name a few. Let's hope there'll always be kits for us to build!

FLYBOY

My Feedback: (11)

I don't think kits are going to go away, but the instant gratification generation want it now. They don't have the time or the skill to build becuase they have never had to do anything like that. Many kids today have been given everything for so long they can't do anything. My friend is one of the best when it comes to working on things and building things, as was his dad. His son can't find the place in an engine in a car to put oil much less change the oil. He couldn't fix anything. He hires it done, no matter what it is. I see that more and more. Most kids don't want to fix it or build it, they want to fly it. Just the way it is. Its not wrong, its just the way it is. There are some that get into the hobby and get into building. Some really enjoy it and are really good at it.

You gotta admit though, the quality of ARFs have come so far it is amazing! I have a friend that is a hard core builder, and he just bough his first ARF and was way impressed with it. That amazed me. I didn't think he would like it.

piper_chuck

My Feedback: (12)

You can disagree with it all you want, but that doesn't mean they are wrong. I started flying this summer after being out of the hobby for many years. I had one plane that was still flyable. I also bought two ARFs. Buying the ARFs allowed me to fly instead of spending time in the shop building.
Maybe they just don't want to build? Perhaps they have decided to make room in their lives for time at the field, but not time in the shop. Nothing wrong with that.
[qoute]
Also, If you have everything laid out in your workshop, it's easy to stop in and do a step or two and go on to something else. This is what I do, since I am busy as well, but Modeling is my hobby. That includes both building and flying.
[/quote]
I find that I have limited time to build. When I am home, much of my attention goes to the wife and daughter. I've got a kit that's been on the building table since early Sept. All that needs to be done is final sanding and covering. It's been like this for over a month. If it had been an ARF, the time invested in it would have had it flying in Sept.

bridog

My Feedback: (7)

I going to prolong the Death of the kit builder as long as I can I'm a realtive "NEWBIE" to the sport but I've been Obessed with Airplanes since I came out of my Mommies Womb I'm 36 now and my father was a pilot and aeronautical engineer and I'm working on my own pilots license But iin the meatime I BUILD! I'm on my 5th airplane right now and have yet to fly a single one... I do have a flght simulator and find it relativly easy to fly anything on it... But I have so much more of a desire to build than anything I'm going to start on my training in spring at the real RC field... There's nothing better than spending two hours sanding down wing tips, the smell of glue, fingers stuck together primer that sticks to your hands for days ignoring the family for weeks at a time It's Awesome! And the Satisfaction of taking a BOX of sticks and turning them into a Beautiful airplane is completely rewarding... I don't know how I'll feel when and "if I ever crash one Heaven Forbid! I don't want to Go there!

CRFlyer

To clarify, I did not say that all ARF's are bad or any such thing. I was simply saying that I hear all the time on threads here on RCU as well as from flyers out at the field that they do not have time to build. All I'm saying is that is an excuse and no more. If building was important to you, then you would find the time to build.

I too have family interests that keeps me from spending large amounts of time in the shop building.

I believe that building and then flying a kit or scratch built plane will provide much more joy than an ARF, but that is just my opinion.