ATC4U,

I'm in the exact same boat. If you check my recent posts you'll see that I asked the same questions. Here's what I've come up with so far:

Personally I wouldn't use or buy a .60 size pattern ship unless you plan on keeping it. If you try to sell it, you'll be lucky to find a buyer.

I have a medical retirement salary so my options were limited to 3-400 for a basic airframe. I didn't mind building so I looked for kits and flyers.

There are a number of late '90s models that are perfect for us. The pattern guys that are quite serious get a new plane every year or every other year. The planes they use in the higher levels of competition are not necessary for those of use getting started or getting started again.

There have been a great many suggestions and I'll pass them on to you. I ended up getting a Summit 120. It was popular in the mid-late 90's and 2 of my local pattern flyers said it would be perfect for me and that I could do a LOT worse.

I only paid $215 and that included retracts, fuel tank, throttle servo and all the hardware. Basically all I had to do was install and set up the radio, fix some monokote and I was ready to go.

I also have looked around for my 'next' plane and again I looked for a late 90's plane. I really liked the Pursuit, Temptation, Elan, Omen, and Odyssey. The Pursuit hasn't been built in at least 2 years but I found one flyer and one kit about 80% built, all for less than $450. The Elan fuse and cores are $325 + shipping. The Temptation is the high one at $650-750 depending on the fuselage construction, but it's got a lot of work already finished. The Odyssey and Omen are $425-525.

All of these plane will fly on a standard 120, meaning you won't need to spend $700 on an engine. I've included the websites for these planes so you can check them out for yourself. I hope this has answered your questions. gv


http://www.precisionaerocomposite.com/ Omen and Odyssey
http://www.piedmontmodels.com/temptation.htm Temptation
http://www.concentric.net/~Dhmodels/ Elan