Hardlandings,

Whether you have "mastered" your trainer or not, the four star is a good second plane, and was my choice (strongly advised by my instructor as well). It is a pretty tough plane as well. I broke a lot of props with it (probably because I like the wooden ones and loved the four stroke) but the airframe held up very well. The only crashs I had that was "my fault" was when I ran into trees. It is not as easy to knife edge as a straight wing, but does most other manuvers very well, and will self level pretty well (which makes for the difficult knife edge). That airplane helped me learn a lot about flying.

If you do decide on that plane, I have two suggestions. First, screw the servo blocks to the wing servo hatches, and don't just trust the epoxy (I had one servo come loose while doing cuban 8, and since I was not as experienced as I should have been, it spiraled into the ground at near full throttle--an new wing kit is $50 . Second, I would recommend planking the turtle deck with sheets of balsa. Those little stringers are easy to break, and it makes the plane look better.

The four star is a very straight forward build, easy to see and orient in the air, and lends itself to some great covering schemes. It is also tough, but also easy to repair. The stringers in the leading edge may not look the best, but are very easy to fix in the event they encounter immovable objects :-). If/when you get yours, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.