I'll tell you for sure what NOT to get: Battle Floyd. Back in the days of balsa in Open combat, these made it rain balsa. Then came the SPADs, and it began to snow pink foam. With the invention of water-based polyurethane came the era of carbon-reinforced-foam-covered-with-ripstop-nylon, and coroplast meteor showers.

Bang for the buck, SPADs are tough to beat, though. They hold up in midairs against their own kind and lesser planes, and are cheap and easy to build. It takes several hours of painstaking labor to coat a foam wing with ripstop nylon, and even these don't last forever.