RE: New to hobby-grade RC planes/helis
There are so many choices out there, that you really need to be alittle more specific as to what you want. Do you want a Ready To Fly (RTF) plane like your Firebird, do you want an Almost Ready To Fly (ARF) which will require you to purchase seperater electronics, or do you want to build from a kit?
What was your experience with the Firebird? Was it destroyed on the first or second flight or did you get a lot of use out of it? Did you feel comfortable with the speed of the plane?
Assuming that you are starting out with very little experience, I would first recommend a slow flying 3-channel plane. The Slow-V is an RTF and the SloStick is an ARF. They are not good looking planes, but are great for a beginner because they fly very slowly, which gives the beginner plenty of time to figure out what control inputs are needed. The down side is that they need to be flown with virtually no wind.
A step up would be the pusher 3-channel planes. They basically look like the Firebird, but have throttle, steering and elevator controls. These would be the Aerobird Challenger, T-hawk, SkyFly, RedHawk, etc. in RTF and the EasyStar in ARF (an RTF version of the EasyStar is also available).
Beyond these planes you would be getting into the intermediate level planes like the Cub, Decathlon, etc. Although people have started out with these planes, if you are inexperienced, you can plan on a lot of repair work if you choose one of these to start with.
Check out the Beginner threads here, on RCGroups and on Wattflyer to see what planes have been recommended by various flyers. Let us know what your preferences are and we'll try to help you decide on what plane to get.