IMO SAFE may be a good way to start out whether you have an instructor or not. It will help build confidence and has the potential to speed up the learning curve. Once the basics are down then it would be time to turn it off and start advancing your skills. When I say skills I not only mean pilot skills but set up and trimming skills as well. Far too often I see guys that are reasonably good pilots fighting their airplanes. IMO a well sorted out airplane without any stabilization still behaves better then a poorly sorted airplane with stabilization. There lays another issue. With today's ARF market where manufacturers will discontinue models after just a couple runs, how much development actually goes into the airplane?