RE: would a showtime be considered a pattern plane or a 3d plane
Neither.. it snaps, cannot recover from spiral easy, will hover but not impressive, will knife edge nicely thats all..
If landing gear is epoxied generously before maiden, it will survive.
I saw 3 ST90 got flutter and exploded at least one of the wings in mid flight. 1 of them dived straight into ground. Mine never had flutter but once it couldnt recover from a spiral in time and crash landed into a lake completely destroying the right wing tip.
Its an adrenalin rush every time - you always know its on the edge.. it looks nice in the air and thats it.. its not a good plane for anything other than slow pleasure flight IMO. would never buy another one. (or any 3D based Hangar9 plane)..