i have been reading the forum for about a month and have been tossed around with different peoples opinions about what to buy. i finally said screw it and decided that i will be buying a trex 450xl cde

yesterday i bought a hitec optic 6 w/spectra and their 8ch rx (i dont know if its suitable for the rex) to play with on the sim untill i finally descide what to buy

i think i will go with the pheonix 25 with the Mega 16/15/3, hitec hs-55 servos (not sure on tail servo) definatly a futaba gyro (201/401 unsure)
what battery and pinion would be good for this

the manual for the spectra was a little confusing because i was seeing all the terms for a nitro. what would be a good learner setup and finally if in mode 2 the left stick does throttle and rudder what does collective (i thought cp was supposed to have constant throttle)