My experience with 1/2A is that they don't fly nearly as well as a .19 or .35 sized plane.
Sig (see Brodak) has a nice beginner plane called a Skyray and it happens to come in both sizes.
What you have is not the perfect beginner plane, but it can be mastered if you can get past the first couple of critical learning flights.
Dallas should have plenty of C/L fliers. Why not try and post to this forum and see if you get a response:
http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php