I myself have flown many small planes mostly Ultralights and " Cessna " Cherokee " Mooney and so on ,I caught on to the RC flying real fast , I started to fly Electric with no sim at all and did fine , BUT as I moved into the $ planes I used a simulator for a week and sold it . Some spend a day on it, some spend months. I started with the NexSTAR but make sure if you get that plane don’t expect it to do all types of fancy tricks! It’s a TANK in the air.