ORIGINAL: jester_s1
And I'm guessing you were teaching your daughter at the time?
Nope... I handed her the controls after a session on the sim and let her at it...
I didn't care if it crashed or not, and she was quite happy to go pick it up and launch it again until she "got" it.
ORIGINAL: jester_s1
The manufacturers generally know what they are doing and how they have designed their planes to fly.
As they did in this case.
ORIGINAL: jester_s1
Me personally, I don't see anything to brag about from a plane that has crashed a lot.
Yet the manufacturers love to brag about planes that they deem, can take abuse.... like with the Cubs... when often they really can't... Hmmm...
Don't dismiss such a feature offhand, on ones that actually can do it, unlike the hype for most foamies...
ORIGINAL: jester_s1
In my book, a success story is a flyer who gets a plane and learns to fly it, maybe has a mishap now and then but generally learns to control it and land it competently.
The traditional trainers will make that possible.
Yup
But as you said "Reading between the lines here, it sounds like you're asking for a tough airplane to survive crashes, that is small so you can fly it in parks, and is inexpensive. Bad news is that doesn't exist."
It does indeed exist...
And it's not a bad trainer too, though it's not the usual trainer fare because of things like lack of dihedral, etc.
However given the requirements you pointed out, it's perfect.... and easy to learn on....