Since it sounds like you are on a budget you may consider scanning the classifieds for an older version of Real Flight, FS One, or Phoenix which will sell at a considerably lower price than the newest one. I honestly can't tell a practical difference between the 3 brands for getting a newbie pilot competent to solo and do basic aerobatics. The computer you have is also going to be a factor. RC simulators are pretty graphic intensive, roughly on par with the most demanding computer games at the time of their release. For it to be useful, you need to be able to get at least 30 frames a second consistently, with 60 fps the best that your eyes can see and most monitors can handle. I bought Real Flight 5 just about 4 months before 6 came out and needed a $150 video card to get 60 fps consistently (that's on a new computer that was pretty high performance to start with). If you go back to version 4 or one from a different brand from about the same time the graphics won't be quite as realistic but still pretty good, and the physics modeling will still be good enough to teach you a lot. I would expect Real Flight 4 to run just fine on any computer that's less than 3 years old and has at least a $30 graphics card in it. If you're not particularly tech savvy, the discussion forums have lots of posts from people outlining their computer setups and showing what frame rates they get.