Don't really see the point in this thread. Keep in mind that many businesses don't cater to new pilots, and hence they don't have the desire to take on a newbies questions. Just becasue a company rather not cater to new pilots doesn't mean they are a bad company. Likewise, just becasue a company caters to new pilots doesn't mean they have anything to offer experiecned pilots.

For example, my company (computer networking/consulting) caters to businesses only. Occasionally we will get home user calls for all sorts of stuff we don't want to deal with becuase it is not in our core business. We have absolutely no business desire to help these people, even if most of the time we know the answer, so we politely send them on their way to businesses that cater to home users. Maybe some see this as rude... so be it, but it is not intended to be rude.

I'm not saying there are businesses that shouldn't be avoided, just that a list of good businesses is probably more useful that a list of bad businesses. And as far as newbie advice on what to buy, RCU is probably as good as it gets because the members typically don't have secondary adgendas, such as trying to get you to buy the model sitting on the shelf. Don't kid yourself... Stores ALWAYS have an incentive to push what they have in stock that offers the highest margin... this sometimes means you will get bad advice from a store (both LSH and online.)

Maybe a better thread would be a listing of companies that go out of their way to help new pilots AND offer sound advice.

I'll start. Not exactly newbie, but if you are new to giant scale, Carden Aircraft goes above the rest to ensure your first giant scale plane will be a success. They can be found at

www.carden-aircraft.com

I've also had a good "first timer" giant scale experience with Desert Aircraft. Very helpful folk.

www.desertaircraft.com