The buddy box is the way to go if you have someone who can teach you. A buddy cord only cost about $8-$15 depending on which one and where you get it from. As long as your transmitter and your teachers transmitters are the same brand name you can get a buddy cord that will tie the two of you together. You just have to look at the type of plug on each transmitter and get a cord that matches up. If the clubmembers are the typical flyers they probably already have a buddy cord that will work and will be eager to get with you and teach you how to fly..

You can get away without the buddy cord, but will more than likely suffer some minor and probably major crashes while learning to fly. Its such an effective and inexpensive way to learn to fly there is really no valid point in doing it any other way unless you just have no other alternative.

As far as the jitters I admit I still get them, only when I mess up and have a near miss with mother earth but they are always there.

PS, I strongly support the flight sim as well, ESPECIALLY if you dont have a person to work with you on the buddy box. If you can learn to competantly takeoff, fly and land on the sim you will be able to fly a real trainer very quickly if not immediately in the real world. Im a big fan of Aerofly Pro Deluxe www.aeroflypro.com, but Realflight G2 or G3 are plenty good to teach you how to fly as well. Once you get to be a failry accomplished flyer the sim will allow you to improve rapidly and in quantum leaps due to the time it allows you to spend at the sticks and the no risk factor which allows you to reapeatedly attempt to work on and develop skill that are inevitably going to result in crashes if you try to move forward too quickly with a real airplane.

Think about it, at the field you make 3 or 4 10 minute flights in a day probably 30 minutes to an hour apart. On the sim you can fly constantly for 2 or 3 or 8 hours. Its a huge advantage,, I speak from personal success. I got my sim 1 month ago and I can do things with my real airplane with relative precision and confidence that I only dreamed about 1 month ago. I probably spend at least 2 hours a day on the sim granted but man its an awesome tool if you really take advantage of it....

Mike