Alena 23 welcome to the wonderfull world of RC...Any full size flying experience you have will not help you in fact it will probably make it harder for you...I am a full size pilot and I can tell you from experience that it is far harder to fly rc than to fly full size...That said you got a fantastic deal and you are going about this rite with the rite attitude....I used the Nexstar for about a year when I came back into the hobby...They are a great flying trainer....If you get an instructor and join a club , you will do fine...You can set it up on skis or floats for flying from the snow if winter flying is going to slow you down...I did see that you are in Alaska didn't I ? You must be running out of good fall weather soon I would think...