So...I'm trying to do something nice for two girls who have been coming out for our flight training; they've been kicking butt and picking up the flying like you wouldn't believe. Their mom is wanting them to get into it and keep flying, but she's also leery of letting them have a nicer plane, and I've got a bunch of parts still left over from my father's passing, so I was going to just build them a plane to give them. 
Now, here comes the difficult part - choosing a plane. In our club, we have a fleet of Horizon Hobby Apprentices that we fly, either an S15e or an STS. They've all been configured to fly without SAFE, so they can learn to fly without the "crutch" that SAFE offers, and they should have no problem picking up one of the planes FT runs with. They're interested in combat, which flies with a group of Versa Wings, but I don't feel like that's a good first plane for them, transitioning from the high wing Apprentice to a plane that's funky for hand launches.
So, I'm kind of torn between two planes to build - either the Bushwacker (sans flaps), or the Simple Cub (with ailerons). The main reason for these planes is that they're relatively the same size as the Apprentice, they're high wing with similar characteristics to the Apprentice, they're larger planes and easy to see vs. the Mighty Mini series, they can take the wing off so it's easier to transport, similar to the Apprentice, and lastly, I have everything to build one of these planes.
Also, I'm trying to pick a plane that would be relatively easy to rebuild when it crashes (because I KNOW that's going to happen at some point), so that the kids and the dad have something to work through should it get wrecked; I figure these two planes would be good planes to consider because of their characteristics and ease of build.
So, between these two planes, which would you pick? I'm torn, because I know both planes are good planes, I've flown both, and know the characteristics of both; I'm just torn on these two planes and figured I'd throw it out there for an opinion since I can't seem to choose.
Now, here comes the difficult part - choosing a plane.
In our club, we have a fleet of Horizon Hobby Apprentices that we fly, either an S15e or an STS. They've all been configured to fly without SAFE, so they can learn to fly without the "crutch" that SAFE offers, and they should have no problem picking up one of the planes FT runs with. They're interested in combat, which flies with a group of Versa Wings, but I don't feel like that's a good first plane for them, transitioning from the high wing Apprentice to a plane that's funky for hand launches. So, I'm kind of torn between two planes to build - either the Bushwacker (sans flaps), or the Simple Cub (with ailerons). The main reason for these planes is that they're relatively the same size as the Apprentice, they're high wing with similar characteristics to the Apprentice, they're larger planes and easy to see vs. the Mighty Mini series, they can take the wing off so it's easier to transport, similar to the Apprentice, and lastly, I have everything to build one of these planes.
Also, I'm trying to pick a plane that would be relatively easy to rebuild when it crashes (because I KNOW that's going to happen at some point), so that the kids and the dad have something to work through should it get wrecked; I figure these two planes would be good planes to consider because of their characteristics and ease of build.
So, between these two planes, which would you pick? I'm torn, because I know both planes are good planes, I've flown both, and know the characteristics of both; I'm just torn on these two planes and figured I'd throw it out there for an opinion since I can't seem to choose.
