Saito, I stand corrected. For those of you who can fly all year round it's much easier to get good sooner. For others, they learn for 6 months, and then they forget for 6 months. There is also a big difference between someone who can fly a plane, (as in take off, fly the traffic pattern, do a few good maneuvers "two mistakes high", and land safely) and someone who can fly well enough to get a plane out of an emergency situation.

My point, and the point of this thread is: What should a beginner start out with?

No one doubts that a beginner should not start out with anything other than a trainer type airplane.

No one doubts that someone who has learned the basics should go to some type of intermediate trainer next instead of going right to a high performance plane as his second choice.

And yet, many people feel that a novice, who in many cases knows nothing about airplanes (remember airplanes? Those things you and I KNOW how to fly? Those things that we KNOW it takes aileron and elevator, not rudder, to turn?) They take this rookie under their wing, and put one of the worlds most sophisticated pieces of electronic equipment that money can buy between his dumb thumbs.

Unfortunately, we have no statistics for who-out-grew-what, and how-soon, and taking a poll here would not reflect the true results because NONE of the people who washed out of the hobby are here to vote. Plus, let's face it, most of us with computers are more likely to be technically advanced, and therefore more likely to be able to graduate to a more sophisticated system sooner than those who do not have a computer to vote with.

But let's look at those "Wash-Outs".

We all know of at least one or two guys (if not many) who started this sport, but quit. Why did they quit? Of course there are those who decided they would rather go hunting or fishing and can't do both, but in most cases, it was due to reasons like:
They just couldn't get the Eye/Hand thing coordinated. Or, to tighten a turn, they fed in more aileron without feeding in more elevator and their plane rolled over, so then in a panic they pulled UP!!!! Or they couldn't get passed that "when the plane is coming toward you, the ailerons and rudder are backward, but the elevator and throttle are the same.

Or, in many cases they could, eventually, get passed these things, but couldn't afford all of the crashes during the learning process (Face it, eventually you have to lose the buddy cord).

Would Exponential have helped them? Would Digital Mixing have helped them? Would the ability to fly 10 airplanes with one transmitter have helped them? No. Either they "Just don't get it" or they "Just can't afford it".

If they "just don't get it", a complicated radio will just cloud the soup even further.

If they "Just can't afford it".... 'nuff said.

No one who has ever washed out has ever said, "If I had just had a computer radio, I would have stuck with it".

As I have said before, I HAVE a computer radio, AND I LOVE IT! I use exponential and I have mixing for flaperons. But what WE, the established fliers, fly with has no bearing on this thread!

So please, when a rookie asks what he should START OUT with, don't assume that he is going to become a great flier, and don't just remember when YOU were a rookie, remember the OTHER rookies you've seen, and try to give them advice accordingly.