Hey Gary,
I think the plane I'm flying now is a pretty good match for a Contra Drive, and will perform very well in the intermediate and advanced classes..
I am flying an Allure with a V4 Contra drive, a Jeti Mezon 90 ESC, and 5100 mah high voltage packs from f3aunlimited. I am also using 23" props, which requires me to use extra long Falcon landing gear.
I believe that the latest version of the Allure has had its landing gear redesigned and now they are stronger and longer, so the landing gear change probably isn't needed. My setup makes weight easily, but my packs only weight 1030g. With Thunderpower 5000 mah packs I am about 10g under 5kg.
This plane tracks very well, and has excellent yaw stability. I am also not using any mixing except for a slight downline mix. I can fly F17 with no problem, but the knife edge half loop requires me to add considerable power as I come down in order to maintain lift, and I have found planes that fly this maneuver better.
It snaps well, but the snap is slower than some of the planes that have Spark wings. I find that I typically get better snaps when I do them at reduced power because the snap isn't fast enough for the plane to maintain track at full power. Half throttle snaps work fine though. Doing two snaps opposite is a challenge because too much forward momentum is lost in the first snap if the plane is flying slow, and it's hard to maintain track if the plane is flying too fast..
These are only issues with the FAI F pattern, and planes that do these things better are going to have other compromises.
In its present form I think the Allure is an excellent choice for all classes up from intermediate to the f3a P pattern, and it is also an excellent match for the Contra.
Brenner ...