Hi Clam61,

As I see it, and this has applied to very single person who has ever come into this hobby, you have two choices in front of you.

1/ You could try to scratch build something that takes your fancy, and either you will give up and fall out of the hobby, or you will build the model and crash it after 5 seconds.

or

2/ You could build a kit or ARF trainer, get a lot of enjoyment out of building, and fly it for hours and hours, and build up valuable experience for when you eventually build and fly that orginal plane you saw.

The choice is that stark, I'm afraid.

The World Champion fliers took the second route, and there is a lot of fun, excitement and learning along the way.

Good luck!

-David C.