Wanna cheap plane ... either for the purpose of fun flying or to experiment your own design, SPAD is the way to go.

Yeap, go for SPAD, and I will bet that you will not looking back at balsa plane. It may not be a perfect plane on your first attempt of building it, but sure over the time and after a few designs you will really love it.

One thing for sure, once you have built your own plane from scratch using those coroplast, you are a lot step forward compared to those whom just fly ARFs, in understanding the aerodynamic and "why" plane flies!!!!. Believe me!!!

I myself have built more than 20 ARFs from a trainer to warbirds such as mustang and warhawk, to aerobatic planes such as chipmunk and staudacher, but personally I have more satisfaction from building my own scratch SPAD plane rather than "assembling" those ARFs kits.

Give it a try, you have nothing to lose.