skelrad,

Since your kinda stuck with having to be self taught, you're going to have a hard time finding a plane that would be good for you to teach your self on without risking a 5 second flight. You'll probably have to think quite seriously about going to a park flyer or powered glider to have the best success. What part of the country are you in? Winds in various parts can be a problem.

I'm in the process of building a little ARF to use for park flying/thermaling. It's sold by Hobby People and called "School Boy". It has a 50" wing span, and I'll be using an OS .10 on mine. I'll let you know how it does after it's finished and flown, but it appears by the nature of the design it should be a gentle flyer.

A .40 size plane that is really tough and uglier than butt ugly (but its a kit), is the Balsa USA Stick 40. If you build the fuselage with epoxy and the wings with carpenters glue, it's an extremely tough plane. I've had several and it will fly on an engine as small as an OS .25 LA. Your .40 will have a bit more power than it needs, but you can also throttle back. It can be build 2 or 3 channel. IMHO, in you situation and if you want to stay with a .40 size, I highly recommend you go with this plane. Since you already some building experience it won't take you long to build it up. I can get a picture of it's smaller brethern, the Stick 30 tonight (I have one framed up) if you want.

Hogflyer