Matt respectfully your logic was sort of doing OK untill you got to this line. Do this and you will have just sentenced your purty new warbird to an early death.

Flaps when used a learning crutch will in virtually every case be a complete disaster period.

True while flaps may allow an airplane to use an approach speed slightly ( no more than perhaps two miles per hour) slower BUT and this is a really big but! They will also increase the pilot workload ten times to be able to use that slightly slower speed and therefore will certainly cause crashes.

This does not even begin to explain the even more skills that will be required if you 'heaven forbid' should need to make an emergency go around while mucking around at the two miles per hours slower approach speed.

Flaps as a learning crutch are an extremely poor idea. Do yourself a favor accellerate your climb up that skills ladder and shorten your total time to acheve whatever your skills goal are by using appropriate aircraft for each succeeding rung up that ladder. Oh and save a lot of money along the way.

Get an appropriate next airplane and there is no need to explain what that is because its obvious you already know what is or you would not have posted this question in hopes of finding someone, anyone who would agree to the jump to your warbirds. Trouble is those folks are never around when at best you are gluing stuff back together or worst vacuming up all the styro beads.

This is not intended to sound harsh but it is in the hopes you will do it appropriately and succeed as thats what any of us want to see, your success as you keep coming back after each rung up that ladder