RE: New to powered flight, and i have a few questions
Welcome aboard, Marc.
For small planes, Herr designs are outstanding and Mr Herr himself is a fine gentleman and an assett to R/C. We've had multiple StarCruisers around that all did well built by the instructions.
I saw one bad Herr Cub -- but that was because the "builder" broke one of the fuselage sides where it bends to come together, but didn't break the other side to match. (It probably would have been a fine free-foilght airplane... circled with or without a thermal!) I only bring it up in case anything like that happens with the sheet fuselage sides of the StarCruiser... I don't recall there being a place for that to happen on your plane, but if it does, all you have to do is either replace the broken part or break the matching part to keep it all symmetrical and you'll have a good little flyer.
BTW, don't underestimate the limits of your sailplanes -- for instance, the world speed record for an R/C plane was set at something over 240mph over twenty years ago by a sailplane and still hasn't been officially broken. We know that jets are probably getting into that range, but none has proved it yet and there's nothing anywhere close in piston powered planes. As for aerobatics... all that's really required for aerobatics is controllability and air speed -- and we've already covered that.