After reading this board I was scared to go fly without an instructor for the first time, but today I went out and my plane is still in one piece!
I have an avistar and I took off easily and flew around without a problem, even did a couple aileron rolls, landing was real hard though. It was windy with light rain so it didn't want to do everything I wanted it to do. I crash landed it everytime (smooth ones) about 5 times and broke props and put dents in the wings and pushed the nose gear back but I think the most fun I am having is crashing it, then rebuilding it and flying again. CA+ and epoxy can fix anything. Im afraid it will be a big glueball soon though. Its amazing how much of a beating these things take. I cartwheeled it once and it was just fine. And it still flies great.

I've decided that if you can fly real planes and you are really good at video games then you can fly RC without an instructor. Landing is a different story though, you need a big field with tall grass to absorb the horrible landing youll make. Im having alot of fun with this.

I have a questiona bout my engine though. When I run it, it seems to be spitting fuel out the muffler and it greases the entire side of the plane. I lean the mixture as much as possible but it still shoots fuel out the muffler. Is this normal??? Is it just unburned oil? What if I get one of those muffler extender things that puts the pipe further from the plane, has anyone tried that?

I broke the mixture contol thingy in my last crash so now I gotta figure out where I can get one.

This is more fun than I thought it would be.