Dress Up Your Warbird

Weathering and detailing a Spitfire ARF

- Rich Uravitch

There sure are a lot of almost-ready-to-fly (ARF) planes out there, and the quality of the quick-build warbirds just keeps getting better and better. Today, ARFs seem to have become the primary choice for many fliers rather than a backup or secondary model, as they used to be. You know—“I’ll fly this while I’m building my super-duper scale model equipped with every neat feature known to man.” We all know the frequent outcome: a layer of dust on the airframe, which is now tucked neatly behind the two new ARFs in the workshop.

While guys like me lament the apparent decline in builders in our hobby, it’s a fact of life. Many RC modelers say they simply don’t have the time to build or don’t have the interest, motivation, or (perhaps) the skills to build from raw materials or a kit. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with ARFs, and they have become an integral part of the hobby. Lots of new fliers may have never gotten into the hobby without them. So what, if anything, are the drawbacks? Not many, except for the sameness and the lack of individuality or personalization. Positive response from readers to my past articles on improving scale models tells me that a lot of you would like to take your scale ARF and just make it a bit more “yours” without investing a lot of time and money. A warbird makeover is what’s needed.