Mike, sorry to hear about your loss. Ditto with your post. With time, or maybe I should say experience, you can easily feel the difference between a "good" servo and a not so good servo. How much can be felt depends a lot on the plane and how it is flown. I don't believe digitals benefit just pattern, IMAC and 3D, but any high end servo, digital or analog, would probably be a waste on a trainer. There are cheap digitals, and better digitals. On the same token, there are cheap analogs and better analogs. There really is a difference between servos other than torque, speed and cost. One of the most important things I've learned in my 8 years in this great hobby/sport is don't cut corners on engines and radio gear. I'd much rather run a great engine with good servos in a junky plane, than run a great plane with a junky engine and servos.

Early on in my second year I had a Masters pilot comment that my Ultrasport felt like it was hunting. I wasn't the wiser… it flew just like it always did. He had a spare coreless Futaba 9101 analog, which is a good analog servo, and he insisted we try it on my ailerons as opposed to what ever $7 servo I had in there (This was before digitals were out and coreless analogs were the best available.) I was pretty much convinced this was all a waste of time, but I figured what the heck. So we did the swap at the field, and flew again. I'll have to say it was a noticeable difference. What I always thought was "normal" I realized was dependent upon the servo. There wasn't anything broken or wrong with my $7 servo, it was just much less precise than the 9101, and it was clearly reflected in the air. The next day I bought 9101's all around for the plane and the plane flew much better. It stayed in perfect trim, seemed smoother on controls, more crisp and precise.

I know this subject often ruffles feathers, and there is nothing wrong with a $7 servo. But there IS a difference between a $7 servo and a coreless digital F3A servo besides the price. How much difference you will see/feel will depend upon the plane and your sensitivity. Cheers.