After mastering your trainer and once you can do basic manuvers with confidence - get a good ssc combat plane (Smack 2, Avenger, Flat Bat etc.) and go to several meets. This will give you the "feel" of combat before you risk your scale planes which take many more hours to build.
Besides - there are many more meets for SSC (or even open "B") than there are for scale planes.
It's all FUN!