Okay, so last week, having acquired a pair of FPV goggles for Christmas, I opted to stick a camera on this plane, which has been gathering dust in the guest room. Figured I'd see if it crashed, then if it did, I'd have a receiver free for something else.
Once the camera is on, and I'm not having to fight my own view angle, this is a pretty fun plane. Loops still escape it, but the roll rate is about two seconds. Slow flying is what you'd expect from half again the wing area of a regular Explorer - very high drag, but the sink rate is really nice. Engage flaperons, and you float gently like a leaf.
When the sun gets low and you can see your shadow skimming along the ground, that's possibly the best thing about the plane. There's just something about how a biplane looks.
Still some structural issues; if I did this again, I'd add to my list of changes permanently affixing the wings, probably with some arrowshaft struts way up high. The plane fits in the trunk of a sedan, so it's just not necessary to take it apart, and removability just makes it harder to spread the wings apart and keep them from getting out of alignment. Also, best to fix the skis in place. It's just not worth having them be articulated, especially if one picks up a little more snow than the other.