Well, until I get the senior falcon back up in the air because of the SEVERELY buttt heavy CG (CG = Cool Gnome - he likes pie ) OR I dope and paint the Das Ugly Stik, it IS the best plane that I own, regardless of how how much or little work I put into. In fact the original owner is my instructor and yesterday he said, "Boy.... she was such a good looking plane when she was new! But she still flies great!"

I can definitely see the bias towards a plane that you built peice-by-peice. It's the time, effort, and "part of yourself" that's going into the plane. For me it's like another form of art, painting is a good example for me. I put alot of myself, my patience, creativity, and skill into generating even a single 8x10 image.

BUT in this case, it's not fact that i took the time to figure out HOW to fix the plane and some of it's previous "fixing" mistakes (knowing nothing about the plane, and having very little "practical" knowlege of how airplanes really fit and work together), worked out the details of the plane (the wing area and loading), and bought all of the equipment to make it fly -I found and bought an engine, bought servos, an extra transmitter + receiver, fuel tank, props, and even a nose cone. And then learned how to install all of this stuff without the help of a manual or someone I could ask to come over and help me work some things out - all of this when I really didn't have the money to spend on anything! but the ACTUAL FACT that the plane REALLY DOES FLY INCREDIBLY WELL!

I've seen alot of trainers in the past and they, for lack of a better term, act like "trainers" - they're tame, you couldn't snap-roll one if someone had a gun to your head (at least not do it well! you CAN do them at a rate of about 1 per second if you catch the wind JUST right), they have slow reaction times, self correct alot, etc... but, the fact of the matter is, they do their jobs well - they TRAIN people in how to fly! You learn all about plane attitude and altitude, you learn how to translate what you want the plane to do "in your head" to "how to move your fingers" to make it happen, and with SOME you can even learn basic aerobatics (immelmans, split-s, cuban 8's, inverted flight, and outside loops, (I've never actually SEEN one "hover", but I'm sure some planes could do it with the right person flying it -there's a guy in our club named Johnny who, I'm sure, could at least give one a good run for it's money! This guy seems to be able to hover ANYTHING!)

In terms of expectations, I REALLY wanted the Tower Trainer 60 to fly well, traded a NICE camera for it (because, with the right wing, it flies remarkably well), and I worked hard on getting it fixed, got my hopes up, and in the end, it turned out to be a lemon because the dude fixing it (incidentally the same guy who let me crash it while on the buddy cable!) put a 40 size wing on a 60 size plane! ===> this DOES NOT WORK worth a darn! The wing area is all wrong, the lift isn't balanced enough to make it fly right, the wing loading goes through the roof, and it flies like a washing machine!!!! In short, it REALLY BLOWS!!!!! now I'm just stripping it for parts because I really hate the thing - it represents a mistake that I made by trusting someone who didn't repay my trust in equal measure - he took advantage of my lack of knowledge, skill, and experience.

But, this FREE PLANE that I brought home with a completely severed fuselage, a crushed wing, no engine, no electronics, and a the rest of the plane that looked like crap BEFORE it was crashed, can burn a hole in the sky! I've seen sport planes that couldn't do snap rolls as well as that thing does. It CAN fly as tamely as a trainer "should" doing basic turns, banked turns, rudder turns, landing approaches, etc...or it can be yanked around like a sport aerobatic plane! And I knew NOTHING about it (who made it, HOW it should fly, control surface settings, etc...) I really expected this plane to be "fun to crash" because it looks like SUCH a peice of junk! And I'd use the parts to buy a flashy ARF with some style and substance Instead, I've got a hotrod underneath the facade of this TRASHED plane! When I saw the original owner flying it and doing SUCH amazing things with it - I almost broke my jaw from having it hit the ground!

I completely agree that part of my favoring it is because I litterally resurrected it from the dead and I DO feel a sense of pride from having done so, but HOT D***** IT this thing can REALLY FLY!!!!!!!!!![X(]

TZflyer, what kind of plane are you building? I've been looking at some of the vintage planes on http://my.pclink.com/~dfritzke/ - some of these planes look pretty hot and I'm wondering if "I" could build one of these! You sure wouldn't see 2 of them at the same club! Some of them are big enough to handle a .15 to .25 engine! And there are a TON of SPAD plans out there http://www.spadtothebone.com/freeplans.htm or you could order some plans for almost every plane available (there are alot of good places to get all KINDS of plans from -these aren't free- http://www.rcmmagazine.com/store/sto...G6ownUujU2y0i9 )

I'm really curious to see what you're planning because I REALLY want to go that route myself! I've got the original plans for the Das Ugly Stik, maybe I could make some mods to it and come up with something "new" off the "box" fuselage.... hmmm...... ideas, ideas..... [&:]