This is an excellent question. The old saying goes: "If you can tell good advice from bad advice you don't need advice" holds true. When I worked in a hobby shop new folks would ask me a lot of questions and before giving any spacific answers I ALWAYS would tell them. " Get and instructor" in a club or not ......but get one. Do what he tells you to do and by the time you solo you will have soo many answers to your questions your head will swim! Rc universe is very helpfull to beginners but does not replace face to face conversations with a good instructor.