Vince, the quickie 500 is a pylon racer restricted to a minimum of 500 sq in and thus is designed for low drag and speed and ease of build so thus built much like a stick. While it has a fair amount of wing for its weight, the foil is very thin and it gets its lift at speeds so lands hot, sinking much faster than a trainer when power off. In its day it made a reasonably good intermediate trainer as an alternative to a stick. It had a little more stability because of generous dihedral but it was quick on control movements. Its not as good of aerobatic trainer however as a stick because of the generous dihedral as the inverted and roll character is not good.

Here is a story that might be of interest. I was out of the hobby for about fifteen years after flying a great deal for ten. When getting back in, the quickie 500 was used as my reintroduction plane as it had been stored in the barn and was still in good shape. With a hot 40 it is fairly fast and I guess I set it up with too much throws because the first flight was really wicked. First, I was not used to the control trims on the new radio. Second, I couldn't hardly get my fingers off the sticks long enough to find the trim pots because the plane was quick and the slight trim issues at neutral stick manifest themselves into a lot of pitch and roll. No crash but feared doing so because it was hairy before getting it trimmed. The reason for bringing this up is because I've built a lot of planes and maidened a lot for others and in my memory... the Quickie 500 is one of if not the hardest to get trimmed as its fast and sensitive.