Jgrepps,

Can I make a suggestion for a first plane?

Graupner Tipsy from Hobby-Lobby.

The Tipsy is an easy plane to assemble, but it's not so easy that you miss out on learning how to build, test, trim RC planes.

And it's incredibly easy to fix. I've split my Tipsy into 4+ pieces twice now. The first time hitting a goalpost while on final approach when it got too dark to see the grey plane against the ground clutter behind it. The second time when I looked away for a split second while I was flying it at full throttle only a few feet off the ground. (My flying buddy said "uh oh," and I turned my head to see what had happened to the plane he was piloting (a plane owned by me).) After the first crash, it took me an hour to fix the Tipsy when I got home. The second time, I had 5-min epoxy in my field kit, so I had the plane back in the air within 20 minutes!

I get about 20-40 mins of flight per battery pack, depending on how I manage the throttle and how much lift I find (it's easy to thermal the Tipsy). If you take a field charger with you, you could fly non-stop with only three packs, cycling them between flight, cooldown, and fast charge.

There are other dealers that sell the Tipsy cheaper, but I found Hobby Lobby to be the most helpful of all the hobby shops from whom I've made recent purchases (approx 10 different shops in the last two months). You can buy the motor, ESC, servos, etc elsewhere for less, but if you're just getting into flying, ordering from H-L is a no-brainer.

BTW, I bought my Tipsy compatible batteries from AeroMicro for $23 per pack.

The radio I use is the Hitec Flash 5. Five channels, five aircraft memories, mixing, exponential travel, travel adjust. I bought the radio from H-L, because they had the receiver and servos with it that they recommend for the Tipsy. If you're interested, go to H-L's Hitec Radios page and scroll down to "5 Channel Airplane Systems." Catalog number HTR971R ($169) comes with a Hitec 555 and two HS-55 servos. You can use these in the Tipsy.

Although the recommended 555 receiver works great, the Hitec Electron 6 is actually a better receiver for the Tipsy (the interior of the nose area gets pretty tight with a 555 in it). FWIW, I bought a Berg-4 DSP receiver from AeroMicro for my second Tipsy.

Anyway, good luck with whatever you end up getting!