Thanks for your comments Zor.  I appreciate it.  I know everyone in here is willing to help.  I was looking at getting a Hitec Aurora 9 seems I've read a lot of good things about it and it is a fair bit cheaper than say an 8FG.  Plus Hitec RXs and servos and stuff are cheaper as well.  I was even considering whether it would be cheaper to see if anyone at the club was interested in buying a new Aurora 9 for themselves and I could chip in $100 or so as a bit of a gift for teaching me how to fly???

The club is a good 45min drive from my place and unless I go down there every weekend, it's going to be hard to find out who will be teaching me.  But after talking to the guys on the weekend, it sounds like most of the instuctors use Futaba and one of the guys I spoke to definately had a buddy box for his Futaba.  It's just the extra initial and then ongoing costs that are leaning me away from the Futaba and towards the Hitec.  I was hoping that with my sim, I'd be "good enough" to be able to learn without a buddy box.  Maybe I'm being a little over confident?  I am also considering taking a lot of peoples advice and spending $100 on a cheapy ARF trainer to learn on before I put my LT-40 in the air?

Too many decisions.  And too much money to spend.  It's all getting too hard.  I might just give it all a miss?  Nah - Just kidding!  That's the main reason I'm not rushing into this.  I'm <u>very slowly</u> getting some tools and equipment together so I can justify all the spending.  I reckon I'll spend close to $1500 before I go solo.  If my missus finds out she is going to spit it big time! I know I could have done it cheaper but I don't like buying cheap crap and I really want to build my own planes!