I'm a beginner with the mini piper too and I love it. It flys easy in calm wind and is fairly easy to land, even for me. If you can get some simulator time or an instructor, do that because you'll have less epoxy lines in the end. And be sure during construction that you have the horizontal stabilizer and everything else straight (don't ask about what I did) before you epoxy it, otherwise it will want to turn one way or the other. By the way, you can use the excess snakesleve to make a good tailskid (see here )

A few things about flying

Don't fly in the wind!! This thing is very light and will get away from you if you do. Don't get impaitient, I did, wait for a perfectly calm day for your initial flight unless you have help (by the way, if the ribbion on the transmitter attenna is 15 degrees then wait for another day). Again, don't get impatient and fly in the wind, unless you want to fly backwards .

Test the controls before launching, make sure when you pull the elevator control down, the elevator goes up and vice verse. Make sure when you turn left, the rudder goes left when viewed from behind and vice verse (again, don't ask )

Fly in an open, and very open field. This helped me a bunch because I wasn't concentrating on not hitting the obstacles, I was concentrating on flying. Even if they seem a reasonable distance away, Imagine how tight of a circle you will have to fly to avoid them, you want a lot of room until you get good.

Take off at about 60% throttle, otherwise it will porpoise up and stall. Still, be prepared to add some down throttle.

And, be very gentle with the controls, don't move them to their extremes (except in extreme situations ). Move them smoothly, and with the rudder, don't apply too much rudder. Take it up to altitude and get use to babyhandling the controls, make a few circuts, trim the controls, then use all your concentration to land. It needs very little controls on the sticks when landing, it is sensitive.

Don't get scared to death that you will crash, it happens to all of us, and this plane is very repairable with epoxy . Wonderful plane, hope this helps to let you have a scarless mini piper ..