I was just trying to put this together, but the manual is almost incomprehensible. I was wondering, since I am still somewhat of a novice at putting these things together, if there were any updated or more understandable instructions that I could download?

There's a long thread here somewhere on this plane.

Give it a look.

Bear in mind that the plane you selected is not really a good plane for a newbie, nor one for someone with little experience putting together ARFs.

If you've joined a club ( as you should have for so many reasons... ) you may want to seek help from a more experienced club member.

I keep using the search, but I cannot seem to find it. I found one about modifying it to use a retractable gear, but anything else is hidden in thousands of threads.

The thread you want to take a look at is here:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_42...tm.htm#4271874

Definitely NOT a 1st or 3rd airplane, I've seen one fellow that had one as his second airplane and although he made some really spectacular "saves", it didn't last too long.