What sorts of RC kits have you been building for the past 30 years? The way I see it, there's "building" and "scale building" and "flying" and "scale flying" (and add to these categories "building to compete" and "flying in competitions"). You sound like you've got a lot of experience with building and flying. Have you built "scale" models or have they been more the "fun-fly/aerobatic" types. The reason I ask is that, as a first scale model, you might want to pick a model that lets you use the building skills you already have instead of requiring you to learn a whole new set. You comment that you think you'll try the glass method suggests to me that you may not have done this before, which suggests that this might be your first WWII warbird. Going from having never built "scale" (if that's the case) to planning to do "scale competition" is definitely jumping in on the deep end.

I'm not saying don't do it. Just be prepared for a lot of dog-paddling! Oh and "scale" doesn't have to mean WWII.