ORIGINAL: FlyerBry
"... The one real drawback I see to the NexStar is the radio it comes with. Not that the quality is bad it is just too basic for one to want to continue using it for too long. Your next plane will undoubtedly be much more capable than your trainer so getting a good radio from the start will leave you more room to grow before you have to buy a replacement.
Like I said, use the search feature. Many, many have asked the same question you are asking before - myself included. There is a plethora of information just waiting to tell you much more than you thought you ever needed or wanted to know.
I must agree with the above. I own a NexSTAR and really like it as a trainer. I had a different 40 sized trainer and had some problems getting started, got out of it for a year or so due to work related travel then back into it last March when I saw the NexSTAR advertized. So, I read the info and broke down and bought one. It turned out to be a very nice trainer, although I never did use the AFS. After a while, though, I removed the "stock" radio and put in my Airtronics RD6000 Sport. It has all the bells and whistles that one would expect with a computer radio and has a four model memory. With the RD6000 installed I was now able to add such things as end point adjustments as well as dual rate. The dual rate is actually what got me solo'ed because during normal instructor/buddy box flights, the radio was set to low rate and I was having great soft easy to control flights but was having problems on landing. Switching the elevator to hi during the approach fixed that and my landings improved 100% followed almost immediately by a solo and now I am building my fourth plane.
I used the brakes and the wing tip spoilers until after I solo'ed when another recently solo'ed pilot with the NexSTAR started busting my chops about flying with "the training wheels" so I first took the brakes off, flew it a couple flights, had no problems, in fact, my landings got even better, then I took off the wing tip spoilers and continued flying. Next step was to get a more capable plane, so I bought the Tiger 60 ARF which, by the way, has turned out to be a just wonderful second (now my first cuz the NexSTAR is on the shelf where it has not moved for the past few months).
Dick Soucy.