Small planes can fly quite well and they can be flown in smaller areas than big planes. Also, it takes a really good crash, not just a bad landing to do a lot of damage to them. They tend to respond faster than big planes so they should be set up with a lot less control surface throw than you would see in a .40 size airplane. A lot of the .049 powered planes I built were set up with only 3/16 inches of elevator travel up and down and that was plenty.

It's more important for your first plane to be a high wing trainer than it is for it to be big.