2 BUILD or NOT TO BUILD
 

point taken.

2 BUILD or NOT TO BUILD
 

IMHO, pinball has it correct. I can just about guarantee you the ARF factories don't build them like we modelers do. Pinning parts onto plan and hit them with glue is WAYYY too time consuming to be able to make money and FARRR too inexact to yield any sort of quality control.

Factories use jig, more jigs, and some more jigs. Take, for example, the GP Spacewalker ARF I'm assembling right now. I would have a very tough time aligning all the bulkheads and stringers to build the fuselage if I did not have a jig to hold them in place for me. Most of the kits nowadays are specifically designed to be built by modelers using a flat board and very simple tools. ARFs, OTOH, are purposely designed to aide in rapid mass production using factory jigs. Yes, they can sell you all the parts of the the ARF as a "kit", but I doubt you'll enjoy building the sucker.

The o ther point made was that the manufacturers prefer to sell ARFs because they can make more money. Well, it is always more comforting to blame the drug cartels than it is to take a cold hard look at our own society's drug problem. Face it, people, we RCers as a whole are hopelessly addicted to ARFs, and the manufacturers are simply catering to the overwhelming demand for them. If the demand all of a sudden switches to kits, you can bet your bottom dollar the manufacturers will go chase after where the money is.

I'm sure the kit builders are gonna cry unfair, but the RC suppliers are here to make money, just like every single last one of us at our regular job. That's just the way it is.

Bashing Arfs
 

Hey Volfy

I see you say we RC are addicted to ARFs. I don't own any ARFs and a great deal of our OLDER members planes are from kits or scratch built. Someone recently said that this has become a society of people that want instant gratification. I believe it the newer RC enthusiast that want ARFs more so than the ones that have been in the hobby for many years.Who have paid there dues anyway. Maybe its because we HAD to build our planes. I see young people come into our sport yearly. I see them close up because I teach them to fly. Their parents buy them a ARF trainer well no I am wrong now they buy them the READY TO FLY VERSION don't even have to open any glue anymore. And pay no dues to learn meaning pain or sweat. And if they crash so what another ARF comes right off the shelf. IS no wonder they leave the hobby, yes the turn over is very high I guess you can't fight it but is a real shame. I wonder who is going to build our homes in the future? I guess the BETTER HOMES & ARFS People. Makes you think huh?
The DiBO :disappoin

2 BUILD or NOT TO BUILD
 

Well, like it or not, the demand by us RCers is most definitely overwhelmingly for ARFs. I'm simply drawing an analogy with drug addiction and our government's single focus effort to cut off the supply side with little effort spent to address the demand side.

I started my RC hobby in 1984 building kits - not many ARFs back them. I do love building - anything. Funny you should mention home building, I drew the construction plans and my wife and I, four-handedly built the exterior walls of our house in OKC out of Polysteel blocks. If you're ever there in town, stop by 1517 NW 148th St in the Brasswood subdivision to check out our handwork. We both treasure the experience of working 5wks straight out at the job site, most days at 105deg record heat, while me holding down a full time job. These days, however, I'd much rather pay somebody else to build for me. :)

My left-half brain that loves building is perfectly at peace with my right-half brain that faces the reality of my not having a whole lot of time to build and thus prefer ARFs. Career and family come first.

I don't even look at my RC activities as paying dues. BTW, paying dues to WHAT??!!! It's a hobby, fer Pete's sake! Enjoy the hobby for what it is to you and no one else. If only we would all just concentrate on enjoying RC in our own way, and not constantly griping about what other RCers are doing or not doing, we would all enjoy the hobby that much more.

At the field, I see those flying ARFs just as eager to help as those flying kits. And please don't make this an age thing - I see many older gentlemen having a grand old time with ARFs as well. If you ever catch yourself criticising other RCers for their choice of planes, you're taking this hobby WAYYY too seriously.

I do apologize for using the word "hobby" so many times in this post, but you know, that is what RC is - a hobby. :)

2 BUILD or NOT TO BUILD
 

also if you build from a kit you know every part has glue / epoxy where it is supposed to have glue / epoxy
you know its built right and with a little luck should
last a long time.

just my 2 cents

Re: Bashing Arfs
 

It's funny you should mention this, because it's already happening, maybe even more than I think. I was driving up the the road near here a few days ago, and I saw this huge crane on a residential lot. Strange. As I got closer, I realized that it was about to pick up, from the ground, essentially, 1/2 of the entire top of a house, top floor, roof, dormers and all, and fit it like the last piece of a jig saw puzzle on the house that was sitting there almost done but for this one piece. The shingles were on the roof, the windows were installed, but the exterior lacked the final siding. I have no idea whether the plumbing and electrical were also built at the factory, but it's clear that house ARF's are here (ARS -- Almost Ready to Side), and I would guess it's just a matter of time before you see them everywhere.

2 BUILD or NOT TO BUILD
 

Pinball, I think what you saw was the strutural insulated panel (SIP) type of home construction. It is one of many new home building technologies vying to replace the traditional stick-built home. As lumber prices and labor cost continue to rise, the labor intensive wood frame home will find it harder and harder to complete with newer technologies.

I briefly considered SIP when I was drawing the plans for my dream home in OKC, but decided to go with Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF), which reportedly will withstand a direct hit from an F4 tornado.

It has been two years since I've gone back to living in a stick-built home, and I still haven't gotten past the feeling of vulnerability. :)

just my $.02
 

I've been in the hobby for 15 years now. I saw ARFs when they first came out and quite frankly, I didn't really care for them. The new AWARFS that most companies are now building are actually quite nice. I bought an Avistar .40 for my wife and have had to recover it after a crash. The construction was not great by any means, but for it's intended purpose, it more than fit the bill. As far as the comments made about people just going out and buying ARFs and dropping out of the hobby, those are the same people that if ARFs were not available would have bought a kit and never finished it. While turn over might be "high", it's high because the new ARFs have given more people the opportunity to "try" the hobby for an affordable price. The people that start with ARFs and really enjoy the hobby, usually will step up to a kit built plane for their second or third plane. I have trained a half dozen or more people to fly radio controlled airplanes over the years (my wife included) and it's easy to see early on who is truly interested and who isn't. I build kits. In fact, I'm going to be wrapping up a GP RV4 that I'm putting on floats in the next week or 2. It will be powered by an .80 4 stroke. As soon as that's done, I've got the .60 size GP Extra 300 that I'm going to put together with a 1.20 4 stroke. I've retired my CG Ultimate for now, but I built that too. I also have stepped up to building kits powered entirely with 4 stroke engines. This comes after building dozens of kits as a youth and only affording the 2 stroke engines. You can enjoy the R/C hobby in so many different ways. The things that you do to enjoy the hobby may seem rediculous to someone else in the hobby. At the end of the day, who really cares? If you're both having fun, what difference does it make? That's my soapbox for today, thanks for reading this, and everyone keep up the good work on this forum!..

Regards.
Chad

2 BUILD or NOT TO BUILD
 

Seems that there are really two hobbies within the hobby, building and flying. For some, the building was just a necessary evil to get to the flying. There are some on the other extreme that build kits and sell them, rarely flying at all.

For me, it was both. As has been stated already, I love coming home and working with my hands to unwind.

I have no problem with others buying ARFs. My only beef is that it seems that all the trade publications now seem to completely ignore the kit builders out there. It seems that RC Modeler and Model Airplane News write almost nothing about kit building, catering exclusively to the ARFers. And its purely anecdotal evidence, but it seems that all the long time hobbyists that spend the most $ and time at the field aren't ARFers. Seems like they'd be the targets for publications to the industry?

I don't care who wants to buy ARFs, but loving to build like I do, I would like to see, and would pay to subscribe to, a magazine that was devoted to building and didn't waste my time with ARF articles.

That's my only frustration with the current trend.

Heath