Value Hobby Easy Stik 60: A Review

This is the first ARF I have purchased from Value Hobby; I have bought servos from them but that is it. The price of their ARF's are very attractive and just beg you to take a chance on them. I have been eyeing several of their airplanes for years but never pulled the trigger on one until now. I had been searching and thinking of the type of airplane to test fly my new twin cylinder engines on. The size, nose profile, and overall flight characteristics of the 'Stik' type airplanes were the deciding features for me. I have never owned or flown a 'Stik' before so this should be very fun. The box arrived undamaged and the opening begins. I immediately found ONE of the reasons these ARF's are so inexpensive. They are not packaged in full color boxes as most kits/ARF's are. In fact I thought it was triple boxed, but in fact it was only double boxed. The inner box was just as plain as the outer; and as in good of condition too. About the only lettering on the boxes are the words "Made in China". What? I thought for sure these were out of Vietnam, but I guess not. Once the box was opened I was pleased to see all sub-assemblies were individually bagged and nicely taped in place to keep them from shifting during transport. I removed each item and gave it a brief inspection. It was not my intention to begin building this tonight so further unwrapping was somewhat unnecessary. I did unbag the main section of the 2 piece fuselage. I wanted to set my Saito FA-90T onto the firewall to get an idea of how it will look. All wood parts of the airplane are laser cut which makes perfect sense nowadays. It makes it much easier for things to be mass produced when all parts are identical and basically jig lock together. Overall I am quite impressed with the initial looks of the airplane. Sure I will probably reinforce key glue joints for piece of mind, but overall this is a very nice ARF! Now when it comes to the firewall, I will be punching out the pre-installed blind nuts for the engine mount and facing it with another 1/8" minimum firewall. This will give the more meat to drill the engine mount an reinforce the area for the twin.