Many of these planes are underpowered, or overweight, which winds up being the same thing. They use weak motors to save money. They use cheap nicads, which are heavy. They sell them with chargers, which...don't, so the batteries never give you full power. They set them up with short control throws, trying to avoid overcontrol (common rookie mistake) but the planes become nearly unresponsive. They build them sturdy, to take crashes, but more structure means more weight, poor flight, and the crashes they caused trying to...survive crashes. They take simple good free-flight planes and stuff them with cheap car radio gear, which makes for inexpensive but poor fliers.

Most of the time, anyway.

I rant like this because I bought my son an Intruder two Christmases ago, because the E-chargers and Air Hogs from the same company flew so well. I wanted something cheap to introduce him to the sport- something that was his alone, instead of "borrowing" one of my models to fly.

The Intruder is crap. That's just my opinion, I guess I have to say, but I couldn't ever get it to fly, and I've flown models since I was his age. It still sits under his bed. I notice that you don't see them in stores anymore, but don't wonder why.

On the other hand, it IS possible to get a good one. That's where resources like this board (and many others, Jim B.!) come in. You can find what works. The Firebird Outlaw cost less than the Intruder and flew nicely, right out of the box. Still does. Pretty much all the Firebirds (and their close clones) do. Even with a cheap airframe and radio, if you obey the laws of physics, you can fly.

No, I'm not tired of newbies rehashing this question. If you don't ask, you won't know, and you'll buy crap, and you'll quit trying, quickly. Then who will I have to fly with?

End of rant. I'll waive the two cents.

Steve