people flip over radio range a lot. heres a story im not proud of but here it goes.
i build a th fun 51 and i didnt run the rx wire out of the wing like i should have. so instead just put it out of the wing and ran it back the length of the fuse (its a profile so reciever is in wing). it ranged checked fine, not great, but flyable. i thought the hell with it ill keep it close, so i maidened it and it flew great. i was flying it all over the place, seeing how it flat spinned (aka climbed high), checking knife edge (going far away). i keep seeing the plane twich when i turned it twards me. i thought my reciever was bad and was curseing myself for buying the cheap 22 buck 5ch hitec reciever. so i landed and cut the covering to check out the reciever. the reciever wire was less than TWO inches long (its about 3 feet at normal length) , it had split before the strain relive (part of a servo arm).
point is, if i can fly 400 feet high and 300 feet away on TWO inches of a rx antenna you can fly a park flier reciever on a airplane. ( but its a spektrum so who knowes )

i was thanking the hitec reciever as i walked back to the car. doesnt hurt to be lucky [8D]