well at first I was no great fan of the popular ARF Nexstar. but after flying one with my most recent student for the last few weeks and reading up on 'em in RCU forums. I say they are OK. IFFF you take ALL the bells and whistles of before it sees air time, AND if you teach your student to use rudder with ailerons. I learned to fly with rudder and teach that way. using rudder prevents the tail drooping complaint. I learned here that this is caused by adverse yaw not C.G. and is cured with one to one mix of coupling aileron to rudder. If you have the more common 4 chan starter radio, fly as if the rudder stick has a link to the aileron stick ... manual coupling.
my student soloed tonight and flew twice without a cord and was nervous but did two greasy landings followed by a good round of applause. It was a fine night of flying.[8D]

Thats always good to hear, I had a nexstar and had none of the problems metioned, I do agree that the bells and whistles are not worth the money and can get a student into a lot of trouble if it is not set up correctly. overall I feel the Nexstar is a good plane to learn with.

The bells and whistles, the wingtip spoilers and brakes, don't require any setup. The plane requires some trim adjustments, but that's all. And it flys just fine with or without these things. I've done it and that was several years ago, and, by the way, I sold it and it still flys.

CGr.

OK,
IF set up right the ground sensor will work...I just can't get into a system the teaches new pilots to let go of the controls.
But then I like anchivies on pizza

If the instructor likes, it go for it. I like the KISS approach.

I guess I should have qualified my statement. I used all the bells and whistles EXCEPT the AFS gizmo. Neither my instructor or me liked it so we disconnected it.

yea solo'd not to long ago with my Nexstar and we took everything off except the wingtip spoilers. everyone at my club said that the AFS is there to HELP you crash.