RE: Kit for beginner
I haven't built a Top Flite kit for years. I never liked them because the wood wasn't that great, the die-cutting was poor and the kits were extremely complicated for what they were. It was like you were doing all the work to make a scale masterpiece with a model that wasn't as close to scale as it should have been.
I just got my first skyshark kit. I haven't built it yet so I can't say that it's going to build easily, but the kit looks very good. It's all laser cut, came with a nice glass cowl and looks a lot simpler than a comparable Top Flite kit. Again, I haven't looked at recent Top Flite kits so they could be different now than when I last built one.