Firstly stay as far as possible away from Nicads and Nimhs. They are absolutely rubbish on these planes. Only use these if you want a crap power to weight ratio and like flying in circles for about 1 minute duration.
If you look around you can find quite cheap Lipo chargers, and prices of both these and the batteries themselves are coming down.

You also want to put a brushless motor on it. The power and duration and the long life of the brushless stuff is far better than the horrible geared brushed motors.It will be well worth the extra initial cost

The shockflyer is a tried and tested design, which flies superbly. I have flown all three types and own the edge. they are the best 3D planes i have flown so far, and absolutely great fun. I don't know what this sukhoi flies like, but i can vouch for the shockflyer.

Luke