Well golfingguy27 you have asked a question to which you'll get a million answers. There a lot of good heli out there right now. I was in your position recently and ended up getting a Raptor 50. I'v ebeen flying fixed wing for years and find it boring to fly circles. So I wanted a capable heli as well. I spent a great deal of time flying helis on G2 before I got a heli. I have advanced very quickly. In fact on flight # 9 I started doing loops and rolls with my Raptor. I had narrowed my descision to the Venture 50 and the Raptor 50. I really wanted an X-Cell heli, but the 60 size was out of my proce range and the X-Cell 50 is a bit heavy for 3D flying. If anyone at your club is flying helis get what they fly. There's only 1` guy at my club flying helis, well since my pruchase there are now 3, but all 3 are Raptor 50's. My LHS, not so local realy at 65 miles, stocks all the parts for the Raptor's and the owner flies a Raptor 50. That made the descision an easy 1.

Truth is get the heli you like the best. The Raptor is a nice heli easy to build, stable ad low parts cost, course so are most of the others out there though. I would suggest a kit over an ARF so you'll better uderstand the heli and when things are not quite right you'll have a better idea what the problem is.

Good luck. Have fun.