Wow! Great story!

Albeit I had an instructor take my duraplane off and land it for the first few days of training, I found flying it was smooth. When it came to takeoffs, it needed a lot more runway than other planes on the field. However, flying was easy and could (and is) accomplished at slow speeds. Landings are great, and I'm constantly doing touch-and-goes just to see how slow and low I can get the plane before the wheels touch.

The plane is easily heavier than that of balsa due to it's thick PVC fuselage combined with aluminum u-channel tail. But, as said before, I've never flown anything else so I'm sure I'm biased.

-David