Walla Walla Proptwisters Soap Box

	ARF's -- The Dusk of Creation
We don’t change our own oil anymore, just drive the car down to Wal Mart or Superlube and have them do it for us. We don’t mow our own lawns or put up a few shelves in the house ourselves either. Just call the local lawn service or carpenter to do those simple things for us, and, as model aircraft hobbyists, we don’t build our own airplanes anymore either. We leave that chore to some guy named Ho, Lu, Chinn or whoever in some far-off place called China. Sadly, I’m old enough to remember when the only airplanes we could get were the ones we built from kits, plans or designed ourselves from scratch. There was a certain amount of pride exhibited by those who showed up at the field with a new and, hopefully, unique plane. Unlike today, we wouldn’t get caught dead with a plane that was a clone of another guys model just like our wives wouldn’t get caught dead at a party wearing the same dress as another woman. We were a creative lot back then when we showed up with our newest kit, built from plans or original design. We tell ourselves that we live in a different era, where time is at a premium. Horsehockey!! We worked the same eight to fifteen hour days back then and still had time to build something fresh and exhibit some creativity. Maybe after having everything done for us we have just become plain LAZY. Unfortunately, I have been sucked into this rut myself, having purchased a number of ARF’s over the last ten years and leaving a number of good original projects to gather dust. Buying ARF’s was like a drug addiction. The short high I got from my purchase soon disappeared, so I had to buy another one and another and so on. Being the creative type, I eventually realized that I wasn’t being true to myself. In order to wean myself off of the ARF addiction I have decided to resurrect some of my old [dusty] projects and stop wearing the same colored (metaphorically speaking) dress as all the other guys at the field. Lets see if we can't modify our creative thought processes by injecting a modicum of individuality and creativity into our hobby. Lets not leave our good 'ol 'American Ingenuity ' to the whims of the foreign manufacturers and their bottom lines. Lets get back to what once made this hobby great. ___________ (to be continued in part 2: ‘Setting up a good flying plane isn’t Rocket Science’)

ARF's -- The Dusk of Creation

     We don’t change our own oil anymore, just drive the car down to Wal Mart or Superlube and have them do it for us. We don’t mow our own lawns or put up a few shelves in the house ourselves either. Just call the local lawn service or carpenter to do those simple things for us, and, as model aircraft hobbyists, we don’t build our own airplanes anymore either. We leave that chore to some guy named Ho, Lu, Chinn or whoever in some far-off place called China.

     Sadly, I’m old enough to remember when the only airplanes we could get were the ones we built from kits, plans or designed ourselves from scratch. There was a certain amount of pride exhibited by those who showed up at the field with a new and, hopefully, unique plane. Unlike today, we wouldn’t get caught dead with a plane that was a clone of another guys model just like our wives wouldn’t get caught dead at a party wearing the same dress as another woman. We were a creative lot back then when we showed up with our newest kit, built from plans or original design.

     We tell ourselves that we live in a different era, where time is at a premium. Horsehockey!! We worked the same eight to fifteen hour days back then and still had time to build something fresh and exhibit some creativity. Maybe after having everything done for us we have just become plain LAZY.

     Unfortunately, I have been sucked into this rut myself, having purchased a number of ARF’s over the last ten years and leaving a number of good original projects to gather dust. Buying ARF’s was like a drug addiction. The short high I got from my purchase soon disappeared, so I had to buy another one and another and so on. Being the creative type, I eventually realized that I wasn’t being true to myself. In order to wean myself off of the ARF addiction I have decided to resurrect some of my old [dusty] projects and stop wearing the same colored (metaphorically speaking) dress as all the other guys at the field.

     Lets see if we can't modify our creative thought processes by injecting a modicum of individuality and creativity into our hobby. Lets not leave our good 'ol 'American Ingenuity ' to the whims of the foreign manufacturers and their bottom lines. Lets get back to what once made this hobby great.
___________
(to be continued in part 2: ‘Setting up a good flying plane isn’t Rocket Science’)