The Alpha is a great choice for a starter. I bought the Alpha 40 and have nothing but good things to say about it. I can fly and land it on my own (I am on a buddy box with my instructor still), it is just takeoffs I have to work on...I have only flown it about 10-12 times as well. It is a very stable airplane in the air and can handle the wind. I had a scary moment last week with it. I was flying and a storm was passing to the North of us and the winds picked up very quickly with some good gusts. We knew the storm was going to miss but I wanted to land the plane because the gusts were getting bad and rocking the plane around pretty good, anyways brought it in for a landing and was just about to land it when a big gust hit and really sent my plane for a wobble just a couple of feet off the ground. I recovered just in the nick of time but had a pretty hard landing, minor damage to the nose wheel rod and that was it...thank goodness the plane has some stability otherwise I would have probably ended up landing upside down or straight in.