Flew my SE for the first time this weekend. Weather was clear and hot here in Morgan Hill, Ca. The SE is sort of my second plane. 1st plane is a kadet senior and briefly I flew a 4 *. Basically made only two significant mistakes with the SE this weekend, but fortunately I was 1 1/2 mistakes high each time. A little too close for comfort. First I got out a little too far, little too high, lost orientation and ended up inverted losing altitude. Didn't panic and sorted it out. The second mistake was intentionally going inverted and then again losing too much altitude. This was a little closer, but again I did not panic and was able to sort it out.
I've flown the kadet for about a year and find the SE really quick requiring careful use of controls. The SE is set with low rates per manual, 40 % expo and a OS 50SX for power. CG is a tad under the recommended 3 1/2 inch setting. I want to emphasize how quick the SE is to control input. Use gentle small travel inputs on the control at least initially.
I would say the biggest thing to learn on either the 4 * or SE is that turning with ailerons will require substantial use of the elevator. Most trainers you can turn with ailerons only. This is quite different from a symmetrical or semi symmetrical winged plane. They will require a lot of elevator to actually accomplish the turn. I crashed the 4 * on landing one time by attempting a low altitude turn with only aileron. Basically it just banked, lost altitude, hit the wing on the ground and then cart wheeled.
Both planes are easy to take off and land with no bad habits. Neither plane has any tendency to nose over or ground loop on asphalt runway.
The SE is a handful, but seems like it would be ok for a 2nd plane. I think most beginners should consider having someone with more experience maiden the plane and then use a buddy box for their first few flight until they are comfortable with the SE. I did OK by myself, but it was pretty close.