The T-Hawk is far and away the plane for you.

Although I love the Magpie, it has a couple things going against it for a starter plane:

[ul][*] Front motor/prop: prone to damage upon crashing[*] EPS foam, not EPP. Even when you tape the leading edges of the wing, this is not as durable as EPP. The T-Hawk isn't EPP either, but rather a mix of materials (more on that later)
[/ul]

The T-Hawk has a plastic fuselage that is indestructible. Take it from me, I've tested it... [&o] The wing and tail are not as tough as the fuselage, but the package comes with a spare of each, as well as two spare props.

It does not have ailreons, but it has a polyhedral wing shape that lets the rudder make it bank quite well. Its stock speed 400 makes plenty of power, so you can fly in some pretty good winds, once you have some stick time under your belt. The T-Hawk soars like there's no tomorrow. The T-Hawk includes a very nice little 1 hour AC/DC peak charger. You can charge the batteries from your car cigarette lighter socket or your wall socket at home. It also includes two battery packs. (pay the extra $10 or so and upgrade to the 900 mAh NiMH packs)

I bought my T-Hawk as a learner, and it is still flying very well, despite having been drilled into the ground more times than I'd care to admit, and being treed once. I also bought the beefed-up landing gear, though it was a complete waste. The stock landing gear is crap. That much is true. But once you realize that this plane is at its best when hand-launching and belly-landing, you'll be better off. The beefy landing gear would handle asphault landings no problem. But it also increases the weight, which means it doesn't soar as well. It spoils the aerodynamics too. The thick plastic fuselage just glides along your grass field so beautifully... you'll see what I mean.

Just do yourself (and your plane) a favor and practice up on FMS first. (it's a free flight simulator, find it with Google, download it, and save some plane parts! You'll need a dual analog USB controller for $20)