It is like most hobbies, one goes thru stages. In your trains, you did not start with $1000 engines? Everything evolves and changes. It is not that easy to fly well, it is not that hard to fly around, but it is not easy (at least for me) to fully control your plane the way that you want. Then there is building planes. There are many different types of planes and they all fly different, there are pattern planes, warbirds, sport planes, scale planes, float planes, multi engines, jets, and many many more. Every plane flies a little bit different and takes hours to "master". I have been trying to fly for 5 years? now and I am still not a very comfortable pilot (largely because of a lack of time) but I still love to get to the field and fly and talk to my friends there.

I hope that helps.

Jon