Lift,
My vote is also for the Hawk IV or SE in 30 size, even with the stock wire drive. May I suggest that you use the stock, inexpensive wire drive to take you through your training stage. Then upgrade to the shaft system later when you are ready for it.

Needless to say, in the 50 size the Falcon SE V2 is the hands down winner.

H500 pilot:

I have had and seen tail rotor failures with belt drive systems, shaft drive systems and wire drive systems....never blamed the system for the failure. It was always due to improper assembly or improper maintainance (or lack thereof) as suggested by Flmgrip.

I have been at this long enough to have learned not to blame my shortcomings on my machines. If nobody else is having the same problem as I am with their identical system, the problem has always been traced to something I did or didn't do....not to the machine/system.