Normally I track with your thoughts, britbrat; and in truth, what you say probably applies to the majority of newbies. But youngsters these days have a lot more snap than we sometimes give them credit for. The increased reliability of our equipment means that the slow, painful learning curve we had to go through can be circumvented somewhat. I have seen this numerous times, including my grandson. His experience with video and computer games saw him flying competently by the second tank on the LT-40; the only times he got in trouble was while he was learning orientations. Once he knew what to look for, he flew like an old hand. It was rather humbling, especially when I thought about how long it took me to become comfortable on the sticks...


I just did a quick price check:

1. UCD 60.....$180
2. UCD 46.....$150
3. Tiger II..... $160
4. 4 Star 40.....$150
5. 4 Star 60.....$209

So I don't see your price argument. The UCD 60 is $20 more than a Tiger, and $30 more than a 4 Star- both of which are benchmark "second planes". All of these are top-quality ARFs; yes, he could get a VMAR or some other sub-standard offering for less; but why would he want to???

Is $20-$30 "significant"? Not to me. I assume nashman knows how much the costs are.

My enthusiasm for the model (which is lukewarm, at best) isn't coloring my thinking. The fact that the airplane flies so well, in so many different aspects, does color my thinking. I think we (Ned and I, anyway) have written enough "warnings" to nashman; we're not advising him to blindly jump out there and get after it.