Add another vote for the Easy Star. Motor in back where it's safe in a crash. Super durable. Comes with everything you need for around $180 from Tower Hobby. Very gentle flyer that can be flown very slowly if there's not much wind. It's big so you can really see it. You can get 10 minute flights easily with a little throttle management. I love to get mine up high, shut the motor completely off and look for some lift. Will fly in winds up to about 8 mph on my Davis Windmeter without any real anxiety and will fly in a bit more wind if the pilot has the skills. If you need parts a whole kit that has ALL the parts less electronics is only around $60. You can get all the help you want with this plane becasue there are so many people flying them (gee, ya think there's a reason for that?). There's even an Easy Star web site where guys from all over the world talk about what they've done with their E.S. http://www.mpx-easystar.de/ and there's the never ending E.S. thread over on Ezone. The main downside to the ES that comes to mind is that it really glides well and so you need a decent sized open area to land in especially in the beginning. The required area gets smaller as you get some experience.

I guess you could say I like my plane! I also like my combat Wings XE2 and my Whisper 2 flying wings . Never would have gotten to those wings without the ES but that's another story for another time.