If it were me, and I wanted to start in .40 sized planes, I'd go with the eagle II arf and get a .56 saito or .62 saito, 2 strokes work too. If you go to small, follow what I said earlier and get the cloud ranger, it should take about 3 to 4 hours of real assembly, figure about 2 nights, and 2 nights for covering if you never covered before, 1/2 day if your acustomed to it. the rest is the same.