ORIGINAL: Minnreefer
I would ask, what is your budget and or comfort level with people and equipment. If money is not an issue, then buy new, but if you have a budget, then talk to clubs, ask around, look on craigs list, I have seen many, many good used airplanes and deals for quit a bit cheaper. Every February our club has an auction and I have seen many many planes with engines sell for less then $100. I would also highly recommend buying a flight sim, I use Phoenix and it works very good and would save you some time and money in the long run.
Jon
Oh in post # 17 I mentioned that I did just buy a sim. The RealFlight 6.5.
As far as a budget goes. Right at this point I want to keep it under a thousand. I want to have a decent radio that will grow with me. So a 5 to 7 channel w/mutli model capabilities. So that could easily be in the $300-$500 range new. The rest would be needed for the plane and whatever I need to get it off the ground. I prefer not to get that spendy if I dont have to. But I do prefer buying new. I generally dont buy used unless Im already familiar and confortable with the person selling it. Ive spent some time looking at the Tower Trainer thats been mentioned. It with an basic OS engine, basically flight ready with some spare props etc. would be in the $350 brand new range. So with that and a decent radio system, Id still have room for fuel, spare parts and have a good start on a feild box.
I am, and always was leaning towards nitro. I am set up for electric as I do run Lipo's in my ground RC's...which has become more of the norm there at the moment, and even more likely to replace nitrovehiclesas time goes on. But here in So. NH near the coast where I live, we dont realy have wide open parks suitable to fly planes in. And running on someones private property is off limits without tracking down an owner and getting permission. So joining an established flying club makes sence. All the ones Im already familiar with have their feilds located in area's where the nitro engine noise isnt a problem.