The Stryker is a very good plane, but it will go exactly where you tell it to, including straight down. The Aerobird challenger is a decent trainer, but trust me you will want to have contact, (and fly with), experienced pilots. I have found that virtually everyone loves to help begginers. Everyone has been there once, and it really does not bother anyone.

I started with an aerobird, but I couldn't really fly it because I had no support at all, so I had to learn everything by trial and error, which is hardly very good on the plane, and when it is just you at the field, it's much easier to get bored with only you flying. After a year and a half, I finally found some others to help, and that is when I really 'took off' so to speak. In a few weeks I was ready for a stryker, and six months after that I bought a Tensor 4D, which turned out not to be the best choice, but I could fly it quite well at that point. Now I have the GP Flatouts Reflection and I'm learning to hover.

However, if I could have bought an ARF to start with I could have saved myself a good amount of money. You see, by now, the aerobird is in bad shape from all the abuse it took trying to learn by myself, and I really wish I could transfer it's electronics to another plane but I can't with its large circut board thing which is only compatible with that plane. I wouldn't have to just let all of it sit there if I could just move some of the equipment. In addition, when I bought the Tensor, I had to spend a lot of money, but then when I had a fairly serious crash, I decided to move on, so I went down to the hobby shop and bought a new plane for only 45 bucks!

Looking back, I wish my first plane had been an ARF, maybe a Slow Stick or another GWS plane, in the end I would have saved much money. Also, I wish I had found some pilots to start off with, it would have saved me a year of pointless trial and error flying and a plane that had about 25 flights and 3 sucessful landings.

Hope my experiences help.

edit: My best radio which I have used for two planes, is a Futaba 6EXA.