The Pica kit is probably best described as a "builder's kit." There are a lot of sticks and the instructions are terse at best. As an example, the instructions say "mount the top wing and attach the N structs" (which are functional) without any ideas as to how to fasten them to the nylon brackets in the wings. I also could find no indication at all on the plans or in the instructions as to where the CG was to be located although the guy at Pica swore it was right there on the plans (its wasn't!) It took me about 6 months of work to build while I was an underemployed graduate student.
The Waco flys very scale-like and is quite easy to manage although doesn't have a lot of power. You have to dive it before it will loop or roll, just like the real one, and you can't count on engine power to get you out of a tight situation. In spite of this, it was one of my favorite planes of all time and always got a lot of favorable comments at flyins. It was over 8 years old and had hundreds flights on it when I finally had to sell it because I simply didn't have time to fly it regularly.
