What I can say is, how a plane flies depends on it's design, dimensions, and weight. There is nothing magical about balsa, just as there is nothing magical about plastic. A good trainer has certain characteristics. The dihedral flat wing, tricycle gear, a wingloading in the neighborhood of 18 oz./sq. ft. give or take. The Spad trainer of choice is the Debonair. It is a good trainer. I'm not saying it's any better than the popular trainer ARF's and kits like Kadets and so forth, but however there are many folks out there who have flown them that will tell you they are no worse as well. The real selling point? Cheap, durable, easy to build. Looks? No, but trainers are not supposed to be good looking anyway. If looks are important to you, you could always go with the extra work and build a Spadet, looks like the balsa trainers. Now here's the rub...building Spads can be challenging to an absolute beginner who has no knowledge of clevises and control arms and radio installation and engine installation and so forth. Spad construction assumes a little familiarity with these things. Trainer ARFS include all this harware and hold your hand through the process. So a beginner starting out with Spad is a great thing...but you really need someone to help you build it as well as fly it that first time IMHO, unless you do a lot of research and are pretty handy to begin with, or have flown and destroyed your balsa trainer.