I had a friend who learned to fly with that system. The funny thing was that he found that the "Anti-Crash" system was never hooked up and he had never noticed it. He practiced quite a bit on the simulator, though. I agree - not necessary. You'll have to learn to fly without it someday, and most everyone before you has already done so, so it's not really necessary, just a crutch. In my opinion, you might even learn a bad habit or two by becoming dependant on it.

You might give some thought to reinforcing the main landing gear area from the inside. Being a trainer, the plane is going to take some abuse. Those plug-in gear are nice to install, but were a real bugger to fix after a few 'hard' landings. It was repairable, but it might be good to reinforce it before things get that far.

Also, one minor point that your son-in-law would probably pick up on anyway - the present high speed needle was way off. he could not start the engine himself. I finally got it going after removing the 'stop' and manually adjusting the valve.

Overall, the plane was a nice setup. You'll do pretty well learning to fly on it. Happy Landings!

Bob