I hope he does well with it. If it does not work out, at least it's a $200 ARF & $170 engine versus $700+ for ARF & engine.

I could be wrong but it does look pretty fragile for a second plane. I'm only basing this on the pictures in the manual and on the Horizon site. I know the saying, "Planes should be builT to fly, not to crash," but (like already mentioned) the second plane often takes more abuse than the primary trainer.