Did you start with ARTF and move to building from kits or vice versa?

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Stuart Z]

Similar issue, started with kits/plans as there where no ARTF’s and have since bought a couple as stock and a couple of electric foamies for when the field is muddy, but otherwise build my own.

S

[Ian Jones]

Just realised I voted incorrectly.

When I were a lad my dad bought me a free flight glider, apart from clipping on the wings it was ready to fly. So that's where it all started.

As a young teenager I built a model from a kit, rubber motor powered, it hadn't flown more than a few feet testing for CG when I over wound the motor. My then very short short model went on the scrap heap.

Fast forward many years and to the answer I gave, I started RC flying with an ARTF trainer as the primary drive was to get flying. These days, kits, plans, ARTFs and a little DIY modification to any of them are all in the mix.

[Martyn K]

With one or two exceptions, I am strictly a scratch builder, preferring to work to my own designs if possible. I started building from KK kits 50 years ago and although I am not a good builder, I love the fact that I am flying something I have created. That is important to me

If I couldn't build, I probably wouldn't bother.

The only ARTFs I have bought were a Trainer and a HK Ionis. I also have a Sukhoi in the loft for 30cc petrol which I am struggling to get enthused about and a Eurobat which is fun to fly. Both were purchased from a deceased club members assets. I just cant get excited about ARFs or ARTFs - sorry..

[Erfolg]

Yes, others have the same problem. When you are old, that is really old, that is to others, ARTF would have been a set of random capital letters, when we started out as modellers.

I started flying with a catapult Gunther glider.

Yet the beginning of modeling was for me a Veron, i think "Sea Mew", 302 span. Followed by a Frog, Minx, which really did fly. Although not for long with my lack of anything.

To think, that young Beth, thinks that ARTF has always been the norm. Do we need a designation BARTF and PARTF, that is Before and Post.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Jonathan M]

I heard a couple of bicycle builders once made a flying machine...

Nowadays the Chinese proletariat make millions of them.

[Piers Bowlan]

Back in the day, my dad brought home a rubber powered Frog Interceptor from Gamages. He then built a Caprice glider from the KK kit. I built a Cox Babe Bee powered FF Curtiss Hawk profile bipe from an aeromodeller plan. Various control line models followed including a KK McCoy powered Hurricane. At 14 my first RC model was a Snipe, built from the Aeromodeller free plan using Mc Gregor S/C, elmic escapement and my trusty Cox .049 engine.

Reading the above, clearly the hobby has progressed out of all recognition with sophisticated radios, reliable FS engines and powerful and light electric setups now available. With the profusion of ARTFs both balsa/lightply and foamies in the marketplace, it seems hard to understand why the hobby is in general decline. Why are flying sites lost, fear of litigation? Are modern models more noisy or people less tolerant to other peoples activities? Has the modern H & S obsession branded model flying as a dangerous wayward activity to be controlled! Also, has high business rates and the internet driven the LMS from our streets? Or is it just fashion, people don't have the time or perhaps have better things to do? All of these things?

Like others, I don't know what conclusions can be drawn from this poll. Perhaps this might be worthy of future consideration? Please tick the appropriate response...

1) I sometimes build from kits or scratch-build models.

I do ARTF/ARF. I don't do kits/scratch-build because:-

2) I don't have the time because my job/children/wife/life etc. - demand too much of it.

3) I don't have the skill, patients, I can't be asked!

4) I don't have the cash as scratch building is more expensive.

5) I enjoy flying not building.

Discuss...

 

Edited By Piers Bowlan on 20/10/2017 08:05:44

[Jonathan M]

Its to do with time. The instant gratification of 300 channel TV and electronic media suck the life out of people's free time, and other stresses of modern life (long commutes, financial pressures, etc) don't help.

As a RC novice I bought a foam-electric RTF to get going, then as an intermediate I bought a balsa-IC ARTF to keep going.

My three RC kits (classic aerobatic, slope soarer and scale biplane) remain unbuilt... but only because I'm chock-busy building these:

[Andy Palmer]

Gorgeous Jonathan M

Edited By Andy Palmer on 20/10/2017 08:55:50

[Andy Blackburn]

I started out with kits, then built a lot of ARTFs which provided a very big hit of instant gratification but came with their own problems (fragile undercarriage on grass runways, porous firewalls, etc.), tried foamies and then went back to kits. I now mainly scratch-build for R/C although I've just got myself a DB Tiger Moth kit...

Andy

Edited By Andy Blackburn on 20/10/2017 09:03:10

[John Payne]

I build mainly from plans but will throw in a foamy or ARTF if I like the model.

[Jonathan M]

Thanks Andy

I know they're not quite in the right place (there's no provision for FF in the copious menus of this site), but they illustrate that building is a hugely rewarding activity in its own right. The longest any of these fly for is about 30 secs; can make them do longer but that's not the aim (for scale comps). If each model does about 50 flights in its lifetime, then that's less than half an hour total time airborne. Each model takes at a guess 50 hours to build... so the ratio of making enjoyment to flying enjoyment is 100:1

Jon

[Colin Leighfield]

I started as a schoolboy building from kits, although I started designing my own chuck-gliders from early on and got more ambitious later. ARTFs came much later. I still do a bit of everything, own design, build from kits, fly ARTFs, though mostly foamies these days.

[John Emms 1]

I have mostly built from kits, partly because I started model flying 50 years ago, partly because I like sticking bits of balsa together, and partly because I had a large number of different addresses during my time in the Air Force. Before having to assemble ARTFs for commercial reasons, I had bought a couple of good quality ARTFs and built from plans, models that particularly appealed.

At the Nats, I bought RCM&E mags with plans that fit my current battery sizes (3 and 4S 3300 - traditional .25 to .40 size), and snapped up old balsa kits that appeal (.25 to 25cc size). My dining table is now covered with an Electricub plan, and I am enjoying assembling the kit (slowly) after work. As my stock of building materials grows again (after Sandra sold them as part of the clear out!), I can see the band saw and disc sander coming back into use - as a part of making an old man very happy lol.

[Ian Jones]

It appears that we still tend to categorise people by how the build/acquire/assemble their models, the main division still being those that are "real aeromodellers" and the rest.

However the only conclusion that I can draw from responses in this thread is that those categories are pretty much nonsense these days. There will always be those that adhere to plan building only, kits only etc. but it seems to me that generally the models we have are the ones that meet a particular desire at the time, regardless of the degree of building required. So where we started and where we are now is not necessarily a progression towards what's best, more of a case of an acceptance of the wide range options available with a particular choice being made to suit the occasion.

 

 

 

Edited By Ian Jones on 24/10/2017 11:52:26

[Erfolg]

Ian, you have highlighted one set of dividers within aeromodellers. There are others.

There are those who fly IC models , others who are electric. The concept of divisions goes on to Large Models, Indoor, Gliders with their sub divisions etc.

In reality most modellers have a catholic range of interests within our hobby, often involved in the numerous sub categories, either currently or historically.

Perhaps what can be misconstrued is that differing specific interests and involvements symbolise mile stones in the life of each modeller, rather than a token of aspects being purer or in some way better.

[Jonathan M]

Its only in RC anyway that there's any significant market in ARTF. The other disciplines are inhabited almost entirely by people who build from kits, plans and their own designs - as there's no demand for the ready-made and therefore no viable market for manufacturers.

[Martyn K]

FAI classes of Free Flight - at the highest level - are very much in the purchase components and fly - simply because it is very difficult for the home builder to get the accuracy/strength and stiffness required for high performance free flight models. When I was a lad, a good F1A glider had a still air time of about 2:30, nowadays its nearer 5 minutes apparently.

One of the reasons why I don't fly FAI class free flight any more

Martyn

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[ChrisB]

Started building from kits as there were no ARTF kits available. Now I do a mix of the two. I like building from kits because to me that is proper modelling and it's satisfying to see your creation be developed from nothing. I appreciate my kit built models more than my ARTF models.

Also when you build from a kit you can modify and make changes to certain elements and you know that it's been built correctly. A lot of people say that building from kits takes time but if you get the right kit, these days laser cut and fairly accurate you can assemble a basic model in only a few weeks.

[John Emms 1]

As Chris says, I can't remember a single kit that I didn't adapt in some way to meet my own requirements.

Is this supposed to be about some sort of progression? Heck, I have models up to 9kg, with completed model prices around £1500 (mere peanuts to some!), but two of my most recent purchases are kits for the Micro Aces Fokker D7 and Ben Buckle (Mercury) Galahad.

As an aside, yes, people do dabble in different areas: when I started racing model boats, and we started selling boats, I was amazed by the number of familiar faces from model flying, either doing both aircraft and boats, or given up the challenges of model flying, and moved to boats - which reminds me, I have Sandra's boat to finish.

[Simon Chaddock]

If I say the last kit I built was a genuine Keil Kraft (and they were still in production!) everything since has been own design and build except for 3 ARTFs. Only one was new, the other two were very secondhand and all are now heavily modified.

Sorry Beth nothing in the questionnaire seems to fit!

[Erfolg]

I wonder what Beth is looking to determine or understand?

From recent observation, it is apparent that within the clubs i know, that ARTF models are totally dominant, in all their forms and sizes. That is from Indoor, to the large models in the 7-20 kg sizes. Be they Carbon Fibre, Depron, Light Ply and all guises of Polypropylene.

As for kits, it is us very old who build from kits, in ever decreasing numbers (that is the builders). For kits to revive, in significant volume, it will take a lot of changes. The prices of ARTF models will need to be substantially higher than a kit. Modellers will have to become time rich and cash poor. There is another alternative, that is that us aeromodellers reduce in greater numbers, as the obstacles to flying, which is what most are interested in no longer worth the effort. I could not but note that this year, that membership of the BMFA (in the annual report) has fallen, which could be indicative of the shift to the right of the median for us in general.