I vote a Hanger 9 Tribute 36. We fly them with .46 engines or .56 4-strokes and have unlimited vertical whenever you want. The plane will do ANYTHING. Flat spins, knife edge, hover, perfect inverted, dizzy rolls and land at about 0.5mph....... amazing.

If you turn the rates down it's an impressively smooth and well-mannered, stable plane. They're cheap, small, and break down to just about suitcase size.