Nope, not sick of ARFs. I am however, sick of people who feel they need to continually bash ARFs, or the people who choose to fly them.

Some kits can be built cheaper than the ARF version. The Sig Somethin Extra is a good example....

We have a few ARFs at the field that were covered with shelf paper like stuff. Those are some ugly looking planes!

To all ARF bashers...

You think ARFs are junks? Look at these ARFs... Can you, that's right YOU built better than this?

What arfs?



Chris

Here are the Photos...

These are ARFs.. That's right they are Almost Ready to Fly planes that you hate so so much ... DP

Some of you ARF'ers just don't get it, do you? For the most part IT IS NOT ARFs THAT WE DON'T LIKE! It is the fact that there is no skill or craftsmanship involved in assembling an ARF. ARFs are dumbing down the hobby!! ANYONE who has some money to spend can buy an ARF to play with. And there is nothing wrong with that -- if that is all you want out of the hobby. But when some of us are discussing the shortcomings of some ARFs and what their prevalence is doing to the hobby, don't get all defensive and make excuses and insist that many ARFs are excellent quality. We know that there are many ARFs that are built straighter, better and finished better than most of us could ever achieve. But they are still ARFs that required only a minimal investment of time, emotion and no craftsmanship on the part of the buyer/flyer. What is it about this that is so difficult to understand??[sm=confused.gif]

Hello,

Therea are many different types of people...

1. People who think that ARFs have advanced in construction and quality which is a HUGE plus that allows people to fly quality planes without months of building - like me.

2. There are people who think that because ARFs do not require intricate building skills, the people who only fly ARFs lack the skills that kit builders do. This obviously showed when a person needs to repair a crashed ARFs planes- like me.

3. There are people who LOOK down on ARFs as JUNKS, SUBSTANDARD P.O.S that flood the markets with low quality,unsafe planes and will not touch them or go near them. Those are ones who say that thay are sick of them and want to boycott them... Such naieve mind.....
You know who you are.. DP

Why don't you thank God that you have the skills to build and that others have the skills to fly.


Woops

i can say that there are those who think kits are cheating and that if you cant scratch build you are not much of a craftsman either and that you are degrading the hobby. in actuality this debate can go on forever but if you only wish to fly why build? i actually like woops pointed out like to build more than i do fly does that make me seem like i am degrading the hobby as well. now the one thing that arfs do is limit a builders choices because arfs are more prevelent and kits in the same airframe are getting scarce. however we can always fall back to scratching if need arises. arfs are fine so is scratching and building its all what the person wants to do. what is nice is that there is choice. i would hate it if all there was a choice in doing was building kits. i like the idea if i dont want to spend my winter on a new plane if i dont have to. plus some that fly arfs may not have the room to build a kit like those that live in apartments for example should they get excluded from our little "club" because they cannot build. i have an avid interest in photography but never had the room or money to put in my own darkroom but does that mean i cant enjoy it anyless? YES there are ARFs that are terrible however most repitible companies make good arfs. ask anyone that owns a hanger 9, great planes, sig, lanier, Goldberg arf and see what they say. now you may not beable to compete in scale competitions with a hanger 9 corsair but if someone just wants a fun sport scale let them without all the rhetoric about building and such.


addendum:
with my comment about choice let me state that i am a computer guy. and my choices for most software is primarily windows. i like and use linux but there are no choices of hardware companies that support it fully. there is no choice in video games because all are released for windows. i put forth a parting thought if you didnt have the choice of building just assembly wouldnt you feel slighted against. then think now in the shoes of arf'ers if all there is are kits. why get into a hobby if you have to build. anything that gets people interested is fine by me and it should be too because to use the above example if there was such a strangle hold on the market that you have no choice, that is not fun.

But there is.

I like to scratchbuild, I also like to build kits.
Kits are getting harder to come by, and it's a direct impact of ARFs. My LHS stocks fewer kits because he has limited room, and makes more on ARFs (that take up much more room). Kit manufacturers are going out of business because they don't sell enough kits because the LHS is not stocking them anymore.... Even the mail order houses are either not sotcking kits, or having difficulty stocking them.

Even when I scratchbuild, the old sources for documentation are drying up. Without documentation, you can't scratchbuild scale. []

Our hobby is being diminished. Progress is not without cost, denial is just the first phase.

I like ARFs and I like kits. I have built a TF P-47 and in the process of building a SkySharkRC Tempest. I only buy ARFs for one reason.

1: I like to fly 3d Planes/aerobatic planes.
Now I am not going to build a 3d plane or an aerobatic plane kit and crash it while doing aerobatics. I would feel 10X more horrible if I crashed a kit than an ARF. So I buy aerobatic ARFs.

The only kits that I build are of warbirds. Mainly because I can build/modify them the way I want to and they look a lot more scale than some of the ARFs out there.
It is tough modifying an ARF except after you crash it. Only then you can make it stronger in its weak areas.

what is really dimishing the hobby is younger people not getting interested. i am 27 and by far the youngest in the club i belong to. most in the club are over 50. here is the deal when you actually look at it there was a time where kits were a new thing and it was said that it dimishes the hobby. my trainer was an already assembled arf. i didnt become interested in building till later. and i would have not wanted to get into it if i had to build my first trainer. people for years have been saying that arfs are ruining the hobby. and i am sure that was said about kits as well. its not denial. i know people that like me got started with an arf and build now and people that assemble arfs that built thier first kit.

what documentation are you talking about btw. if its what the full scale planes looked like and the details that should never go away as long as there is the internet. i am not being argumentative just asking what you meant by that.

I would argue that if you don't scratch build(from plans you have drawn) you can't build. I love to build planes during my spare time, but there is another aspect to modeling here. Some people don't have time. The title of this thread isI could probably find enough support in the scratch building forum to start a thread titled: Anybody else sick of kits and kit builders? , but I won't. I could also go to an ARF forum and start a thread titled: Anybody else sick of people wining and complaining about ARFs? , but, again, I won't. If you love to build kits, then take pride in your work. If you love to fly, then take pride in your flying. If you love scratch building, then take pride in your hard work. If you love assembling an ARF, then take pride in the fact that you can do so. This is RC modeling! Who on this thread appreciates that America is a country that celebrates FREEDOM. Why are people always complaining about others? Why not just HAVE FUN TO HAVE FUN!!! I'm in this hobby to have fun!! Are you??!? Let's put this form of racism behind us. I see many people at the flying fields that I go to start out with an ARF trainer to learn how to fly not build. After that, they move on towards bigger and better planes. I haven't seen one ARF builder that doesn't appreciate what one who builds a plane can do.


Off my soap box now,
Woops

" Some people don't have time."

True. I could be considered in that catagory....and sometimes it takes me 3 months to assemble an ARF.....other times it takes me 3 months to build a kit.....

It all depends on priorities - when I'm in a 'building mood', I have all the time I can spare, but if I'm not in the modeling mood - it takes 3+ months to assemble something.

Jerry

what are you wasting your time in here responding to this thread...go build a kit [:-] just kidding

Good point....and I have the entire week OFF, so I'm only 12 steps from my workroom Assembling a CG Pitts Monster and just finished a H9 P-40 (ready for some test flights) and have a TF Piper Arrow 50% completed.....gotta go

Jerry

Yo...


Cann't....cann't ....cann't we all get along...? DP

I'll get along with ANYONE who loves model aviation......

Jerry

Can't get kits anymore? Thats funny last time I checked you can order kits made from the plans of all the top designers. They might not be in your local hobby shop but they are only a phone call away. How many of you drive cars you didn't make, motorcycles you didn't weld together yourself, or houses built buy other people? Yeah thats what I thought. Its that elitest attitude that is killing the hobby more than anything else. The group of groupy guys that thumbs their noses at the new guy at the field that wants to learn to fly his new ARF. Get them excited about building and they just might want to do it.

dai who make or sales the first one you posted might haft to get that one thanks frank

Dai Phan,

Pretty covering doesn't make an ARF a good model.

YOU tell me!!

Accurate documentation. It's always been difficult to obtain, the Internet does make research easier in some ways but it also provides more inaccuracies than truth. In many ways the Internet is contributing to the obfuscation of reality. The problem is more and more inaccurate documentation (often based on inaccurate documentation), more artist impressions than actual documentation are showing up and, simply because it gets published, can be used even in competition. Sick. [:@]

I need 2 good radio's for the only 2 ARF's I'll ever own.

Any recomendations?

[link=http://www.bigdanspicks.com/arfs.html]My 2 ARF's[/link]

Thanks,

Big Dan

Kewl .... can you obtain the Marutaka Staggerwing for me?

My point is, that list is very limited compared to what was available even 10 years ago.[]