In regards to the trainer/no-trainer debate...

The Blade has proven to be a great trainer for me. I had only flown three channel electric planes before the Blade and am now flying circles and can hover with no problems. It has taken my about a month and I have gone through some parts, but they have been reasonably priced. My broken part count has gone way down in the last two weeks (only one set of blades)! I mean for $220.00 you can run the thing into a brick wall and you can't be out more than that. Try that with a high end electric or gas. I think the manufacturer has done a great job with this package.

I do wish the blades could handle a bit more contact. I picked up the CF blades hoping to get more life out of them, but it seems that with the NiMh setup, they just don't work well. I think they are just too heavy with the stock setup. I used them for quite a while and was unable to destroy them, but I guess you need the upgrade kit to get them spinning fast enough for stabilty. My flight times were way lower once I got stable in a hover with the CF blades vs. the balsa ones. I am on my fourth set of balsa blades now.

Steve