G'day I will put my vote with the Easy Star too but with a couple of mods. The Radian is good too.

Out of the box its performance is pretty dismal but a cheap 150 watt brushless motor will really get things going. Fly it with the original motor initially as it is probably safer with less power and less likely to get into trouble. They once you can fly it, upgrade the motor and ESC.

Also, if you connect the rudder servo to what would normally be the aileron channel, the conversion from three channel to four channel is very easy.

I taught a bloke to fly a Radian (very similar but not quite as tough but with a better power setup) by email so it can be done. He is about 1200km from me.

The big advantage of glider type models as first models is that they can almost fly themselves and this gives you lots of time to think what you need to do. Faster planes with four channels need to be flown all the time and don't give you much time to think and react. If you have someone to help you, and you are using a buddy cord, this probably is less important but by your self it really is very important.