Firebird Commander 2 RTF Electric

Reader Reviews
I just bought a Firebird Commander 2 today from my local hobby shop, based on recommendations here on Amazon. Now, let me first explain that I'm a beginner RC pilot, which is part of the reason I bought this plane. Initially, I had trouble getting it into the air, but after a crash or two, I was able to get it going. Even though this has Anti-Crash Technology (ACT), it didn't prevent me from totalling the plane about 10 minutes after the first flight. Now, you can attribute this to my lack of R/C flying skills (although I am a real pilot, I realize this skill doesn't necessarily translated to R/C), but I think the big problem is not having a seperate elevator control. As it comes, it has one channel dedicated to the throttle and one channel dedicated to the aileron (tail) control for turning. This should be ideal for beginners (one less thing to worry about), but the problem is that if you are in a steep dive (because of wind, a steep turn, or whatever), your only hope to recover is to hit the throttle and hope that the speed will bring it out of the dive before it impacts the ground. Based on this experience, my next plane will either be a 3-channel that has throttle, elevator and aileron, or a 2-channel that has elevator and aileron. I don't really care about the speed as long as it's fast enough to get airborne. So, not so much a negative review for the plane, as to clearly lay out for people who are thinking about buying this plane: There is no elevator control! Once airborne, all altitude changes must be done with the throttle.