One thing I found nice about the Ultra Micro t-28, if you know of a big open empty parking lot, you have all the room you need to practice with and a plane that can hold up to a lot of bad landings.  Just bring along a bunch of batteries and some packing tape for the repairs.  $99 flight non-simulator.   Get enough practice flights in with that and when you can fly it with 10MPH winds, you will be ready for the larger plane.