I am Tom from the south west of the UK, I have been flying with my son for about a month, we got a Sport Cub S which has already been apart a few times! I have built things in foam board for years, didn’t realise it was a material you could make aircraft with, so we now have a few part assembled kits in the house.
I managed to scrounge up the electronics and TX to get them flying for under $150 and am just waiting on a few parts to get my tiny trainer finished.
I work with young people so I thought it would be fun to try making a few chuck gliders with them, I cut out 6 LongEZ kits on my day off and we built the first 2 last night in a local youth club, with two more part done. I suspect all 6 will be required.
I have a long history in ground RC going right back to early Tamiya kits and I make and mod everything from cars to Nerf and most things in between. FliteTest looked like a fun thing to do on cold rainy nights (2/3rds of UK weather!) where I didn’t fancy soldering or plastic scratch building and I can fly with my family.
I like the way FT champions new fliers, it’s bloody difficult to learn (my son calls me Deadmeat already) and I always thought it was too expensive or time consuming until I saw your stuff.
I see kids all the time whose only interest is sitting on a game console consuming whatever the latest hot ticket game is, dropping money into it like a slot machine.
If more of them could access real world skills and pastimes like flying or building stuff they would be happier and better equipped for life. Anything that helps reduce the bar to entry is great.
So far my only gripe is that Europe gets wrecked on the price of power packs vs the USA, the EU distributor has premium quality components but the cost is too much IMO for an entry level product. The cost of a tiny trainer and power pack without the TX/RX or lipo and charger was a lot more than even a mid range RTF package. The components are of course available separately from the web but for new people that’s harder.