Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any manufacturer, hobby-store or brand. I am just a regular R/C hobbyist who wanted to give some real-world impressions of my experience with Precision Aerobtic's extra 260.

As an early Father's day present from my wife, I just recently picked up a yellow PA extra 260 arf with the IPA drive system as a package. I wanted to give a realistic review of my experiences so far. My background is about 20 years of r/c planes with mild aerobatics and about 9 years in Heli's. I have been around the block with various arfs and am familiar with the hobby in general. I made a conscious decision about 6 years ago to go electric. at the time, lipo's and brushless were just starting to emerge on the mainstreme R/C scene as I knew it. I found that unless you got lucky and the stars aligned just right, it was tough to get a good plane/motor/esc combo. Also around this time, i started focusing on electric heli's and pretty much gave up on the airplanes. In the last few months though, I got the itch to fly a plane again. I did quite a bit of reading and research to find a decent eletric aerobatic plane for the field behind my house. I saw precision aerobatics, and their claims on their website. I was intrigued, but skeptical. It sounded to good to be true. I toyed with the idea of ordering one on and off for several weeks. I was skeptical about the performance being as great as they claim, and also about the price. Their IPA combo's are more expensive than most other equivelent sized electric planes. Well last weekend, I happened to head to my local hobby store (Hobby Hangar in Northern VA.) Oddly enough, they had one of the extra 260 IPA combo's in stock, and even in the yellow color that I like. I checked it out. First impression was "Dang this thing is extremely light!". After looking it over and getting permission from Financing, i decided to take the plunge.

Specs:
Plane = PA extra 260 (with IPA drive) 48" winspan, 35.3 oz all up flying weight.
Motor = PA thrust 30 brushless
ESC = PA (quantum) 45amp
prop = Vox 12x7
Battery = Zippy Flightmax 3S1P 2200Mah 25C
Servos = 3 HS65's on the ailerons and elevator, and an HS65MG on the rudder.
Receiver = AR 6200
Radio = JR 10X heli with Spektrum 2.4 conversion.


Stage 1, Assembly:
Unboxing the kit and inspecting the packaging was impressive. The kit was extremely well packaged and protected. I probably could have tossed the box across the room, and it's doubtful that anything would have happened to the contents. Sometimes I have heard about kits that have had wrinkled covering, or damaged parts, but this was definately not the case with this plane. Everything was superb. The instructions are well written concise and provide good enough pictures to get the point across. Assembly was done mostly in one evening. and finished up the following morning before the maiden. The build is pretty straight forward. A couple of very minor issues I ran into were:
The little wooden box built into the wings to house the aileron servo's are incredibly fragile. I was not ready for this and almost immediately broke the first one when I tried to install the servo. Looking back on this and the other issues I encountered, it's clear that It wasn't the manufacturers fault, but mine. ( I am very heavy handed). With some very careful needle-nosed plier work and a few drops of CA, I was able to put it back together without mutilating the beautiful covering. A few passes with the dremel to slightly enlarge the hole, and the servo was in. PA attaches thin sheets of carbon fiber around the edges of the servo holes to stiffen it up and reinforce the area, and on mine, they were not centered exactly over the holes in the wood, so i had to touch things up with the dremel to get an exact fit. All things considered, not really a big deal.
Again with the heavy handed-ness, I managed to break the motor mount box. (I really need to learn to be more delicate). Initially I was a bit skeptical about the mount being strong enough, but after attaching the motor mount box per the instructions, it was rock solid.
The only issue I really was unhappy about was the pushrods. they are not adjustable. you build them with a carbon rod and glue a small z-bended metal rod to the other end, which means that if you screw it up, you are out of luck. Read the instructions carefully on the correct way to do it. Then go back and read it again to be sure. I was really worked up over this, and fretted over it for a while before adopting a screw-it let's see what happen's attitude. It all worked out for me with no real issues. Again the manufacturer did their homework and provided a suitable product, I'm just noting this more or less to tell folks not to worry about these rods. if you follow the directions, they work well.
Stage 2, radio setup:
they make it very easy to figure out the right control throws by including an alignment gauge with the kit (very cool).
Servo installation is pretty straightforward and similar to many other arf's on the market. They instructions lay it out very clearly on throws.
Stage 3: Maiden flight:
The next day, after doing a thourough review and preflight check, I went down to a nearby field to try it out. Conditions were pretty crappy, with overcast and gusting winds. Looking back on it, I should not have even tried to fly, but as usual stupidity won out and i went for it. First impression were "holy smokes! this thing has a ridiculous amount of power!" it rolled out about 20 feet (on pavement) and then boom straight up we went. It reminded me of watching the Thunderbirds display team when the solo F16 does the high performance climb. Even at half throttle, it will climb straight up. Second impression: "This plane is so dang light that it's not happy in this wind. Time to land." Which then led me to several aborted attempts to land. Third Impression "This thing floats forever!". It took me 3 or 4 passes before I could safely get it on the ground because when you chop the throttle, it just goes, and goes, and goes, and goes..... For your first flights, make sure have a decent amount of runway to land. I needed it. here's the part about the Maiden flight that still shocks me. It needed NO TRIM at all. granted it was hard to tell about the trim on the first flight due to the wind, but the next 5 flights over the next week confirmed no trim. If it hadn't happened to me, I would have never believed it. I am NOT a good builder, and am not attributing this to my building, I attribute this to the manufacturer and the airframe. All flights so far have been on the recommened low rates. Their is plenty of throw on low to do general aerobatics and have great time. I haven't tried the 3D high throws yet, because I'm just not that great at it, and I'm not ready to push it that hard with a new plane yet.

Overall impressions:
I was hesitant to spend the extra money to buy PA's IPA system, as i was skeptical that it was a great as they claim. I can tell you now, that after having flown it a few times, it's impressive. I am getting over 15 minutes of flight time with my batteries (with normal throttle management). The motor, ESC and battery are relatively cool to the touch after a 15 minute flight, and the plane is just Sexy in the air. I couldn't be happier with this plane and IPA combo. I have to say that i would highly recommend this combo to anyone looking for a high quality 25 sized 3D plane. The plane has a huge flight envelope, and has lots of room for me to grow into it.
My Final rating: I give the PA extra 260 IPA combo a 4.9 out of 5 stars.
I would have given it a perfect 5 stars, except for the fact that the pushrods are not adjustable. I think that they should be.
I will be posting some more pictures of the plane soon, but here's a couple of shots of it on my kitchen table next to my beloved Trex 450 pro.