You're right about one thing: it takes an investment of dedication and effort to bring in a new RC flier, whether that effort comes from a modellers' association, club instructors or shops offering try-before-you-buy schemes. And yes, everyone in the hobby benefits from these newcomers.

From your site it looks like you're doing your part Interesting reading... I've actually learned to fly with that Ragland Technique (even though we never called it that ), and I did learn to solo quite quickly as well, on both planes and helicopters. Nobody had buddy boxes back then. I've been out of the hobby for 10 years and had to re-learn flying which I did on a buddy box, taking longer to re-learn the skill than it took me to learn from scratch when I first started out. (Not a patch on my instructors though: they're all excellent and dedicated people). Looks like there are still people getting results by favoring this method over the buddy box.

(ps. the link to ACORNS on the aeromodelling school programme page is dead).