Well, to be honest, I never touched a buddy box. The closest thing I had to that was a guy standing behind me giving me little tips and pointers, never touching the controls at all. My first flight was my first take off, solo flight and landing, which was about a month and a half ago. Your first solo was your first tank? Mine was to! It was also the first time my plane was in the air. From what I've heard, solo after 1.5 gallons is good to! Just depends on how you catch on I guess. I've been told it was because I'm 16 and my brain consumes new information lol. Thanks for the comliment agexpert ^_^ And to answer your aerobatic question, the plane aerobatic limits are... not much lol. I can hoover it for a few seconds which is pretty hard to hold and probably the most impressive thing I can do with it. I haven't taken out the dihedral (spelling) or really played with the throw settings at all so this plane could be capable of a bit more then I've achieved thus far. I'm not very far into my reading up on aerobatics so I don't really know any terms to describe what I've been able to do.