Samolot

I have been teaching RC since 1971 and I would say the choice of trainer depends on you and your goals.

If you are older, 50's and up or have very bad hand-eye coordination, try a glider, a powered sailplane or an old time free flight. If you are younger, especially a teenager, and you have normal to good hand-eye coordination from playing video games, they will bore you to death in a couple of weekends.

If you goal is sailplanes of electrics, they, by all means, start electric. If you want to fly power for scale, pattern, 3D or just sport, you need to start with a power plane.

My feeling is that gliders teach you bad habits for power flying. For example, you generally land a glider in a field. With a power plane you need to learn how to land on a runway, how to line up no matter what the wind. Also steering a sailplane is different. At high speeds you are about like a power plane except you normally have to hold the roll control in (aileron stick over) whereas with a power plane, you normally put in roll, center that stick and use elevator to hold the nose up. At very slow speeds like when you are stretching a glide to make a landing near yourself, the roll controls of a glider become less and less functional. Some times you have to hold down elevator to get the roll controls to work. An experienced flier will have no trouble with this, but these are bad habits to get into if you intend to go on to sport/acro/scale planes.

The great thing about RC flying is there are so many facets of the hobby you can specialize in. You must decide where you are going and plan for it.