RE: First plane/engine advice
If you want big, the Sig Kadet Senior kit is 78" wingspan and the ARF is 80" and both are 40 size planes. I am flying the kit version with a Thunder Tiger Pro .46 and it has power to spare.
Note: the kit version is 3 channel so if you want ailerons you will have to mod the wing (like I did) the ARF is 4 channel.