Lots of good advice that I tend to agree with..

Don;'t waste your money on an SR.. i have one and mine has been reasonably OK..

Problems with the SR..

My servos were irregular at best. i replaced them all with Hitechs ($100 extra)

Despite many reports, my tail motor has never failed.. It has been going strong for over 500 flights.. I had the main motor fail and replaced it after about 400 flights

The stock colour, blue and white is terrible for visibility, so I changed my canopy and tail fins to orange (another $70)

Plus, the gyro simply isn't that great and the SR suffers a lot of tail wagging. Here is a vid of mine with the new motor

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U-1Phszaqc[/youtube]

I completely understand your logic for thinking of an SR because I was the same and I got my money's worth.. But it is terrible for aerobatics and very sloppy to fly compared to a good 450 TREX or even the Hobbyking Clones.

Don't let anyone tell you the HK helicopters are junk.. I tried the Blade 400 and it failed me 3 times in the first 20 flights (servos - tail belt failure etc) I have since moved to the HK clones and some of them have over 1000 flights without a single issue.. These helis are much more precise than the SR, much more reliable (in my experience) and much more capable..

The kits are so cheap.. IE under $60, so buy two and you already have a full set of spares in the event of a crash..

A single crash in an SR will cost you around $60 anyway.. perhaps more..

Some vids of my super cheap HK Helicopters.. don't be daunted by the build process. its not so bad and you actually will learn a lot..

I was very intimidated by building my own heli but after the first one I loved the build process just as much as flying so i ended up with 12 450 helis...

All still flying perfectly..

Bypass the SR and get yourself an MCPX or a Nano CPX.. when you can fly one of those try a decent 450..

Both of the helis below cost less than half the cost of a Blade SR and are far more powerful, stable, manouverable and capable

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRaI0t4n5Do[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfXW9vw8Qq8[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVH_T1cvm5s[/youtube]