I can't say a thing about the Pacific Edge 540. Never even seen one.

The 3D Giles is a great value IMO. It's light and it's pretty strong. It's cheap. It's stable. It has huge control surfaces and minimal coupling issues--almost non-existant.

It has a few issues, but they are easily fixed or maintained with minimal effort.

I flew my first one purdy hard and it held together. Only reason I wrecked it was because I got careless with the throttle stick and was taking off at full throttle. Just absolutely YANKING it off the runway. I did eventually--after about 20 times--rip the FW out just as it got about 3' off the runway. SPLAT!![:-]

Cutting the existing FW out was a lot easier than I anticipated. I was thinking it would turn into an all-day nightmare. I had the FW cut completely out--nice and clean--in less than 2 minutes with my #11 exacto knife. I had a new one cut and glued in within an hour. And I don't have some big fancy shop with all the newest powertools. I did it with a jigsaw, a palm sander, an exacto knife, some tri-stock and some 30 minute epoxy.

I just got my 6th flight on plane #2 today. It flies that same as the first one. I flew today at 10,469' elevation. I had to use about 3/4 throttle to hover, and pull-out was kinda sluggish. It was defintely accelerating, but slower than I was used to at lower elevations.

I may bump my nitro to 10% if I decide to fly close to home anymore.

It's a great plane for the money. It's not perfect top-shelf quality--but it's worth the money. It's a cheap knock around plane that will do 3D without any problems.