Ah, the Four-Star. What an awesome bird! I've had two of the ARFs (60), and even copied the design into a coroplast 'Cor-Star'. I'm bashing one into a twin at the moment. Anyway, this plane doesn't land anything like a trainer. I've yet to see a trainer slow down and float like the Four-Star/Cor-Star series. It damn near lands backwards with a 5-10 mph head wind. It's a joy to fly, easy to customize, and will take you to the next step.

If it has any drawbacks, they would be:

1) Knife edge. This plane doesn't knife edge very well. It has a tendency to pitch down. Bruce Tharpe (designer) implemented a 'fix' for this on his next design, the Venture 60. He angled the rudder hinge line into a swept back configuration. This cured the pitch down in knife edge. I have swept back the rudder line on my latest Cor-Star, but haven't flown it yet to test the theory. Others say that simply increasing the rudder chord helps as well.

2) Grass landing strips. The lack of sheeting directly behind the main wheels, has poked many a hole in the covering of my ARFS. We share the field with sheep, and an occcasional sheep turd will flip up and rip a hole in the open bay behind the wheel. If I was building a kit, and flew off a grass or other debris filled field, I would sheet that first bay.

That's the only 'down side' I can think of with this plane. Build it, and fly the snot out of her!