My brother did the same thing. He came out to the field and watched us fly a few times and decided to try it. I put him on my Real Flight G2 sim for about 2 hours every Sat. morning for a few weeks then we headed out to the field. I gave him an Alpha RTF for Xmas and we went to the field to buddy box on it. I only took over the plane once or twice and that was on landing approach. Within a couple weekends he flew 4 -5 flights while I just held the buddy box. Never had to take the plane. He took off, looped, rolled and landed fine. I told him "you don't need me anymore" and he has been flying solo ever since and doing fine. I think if not for the sim it would have taken much longer. He picked it up 10 times quicker than I did. By next year he will probably be showing me up.