If you have trouble with slow landings how do you think you will make out with a plane that needs a faster landing speed to keep from dropping like a brick? Balsa planes are lighter and therefore are able to land at a much slower airspeed than a heavy Aircore trainer. This gives you time to react without getting into too much trouble. With a 1/2 decent instructor standing beside you, crashes during training are rare. You usually end up crashing on your 2nd or3d plane when you have gained confidence and do one more spin than you should have or doing an inverted pass too close to the ground. A well designed balsa trainer if it does crash can usually be be repaired within a couple of hours. Your next plane is probably going to be a balsa model so why not start learning with one? I sold my LT40 last summer after it taught myself, my son and 3 of his friends to fly. It never did crash.