When I say I had trainer trouble it wasn't with my plane. I flew a Hanger 9 Alpha trainer, same one I have had since day one. The trainer trouble was with the person training me. Where I live there aren't many people who can train. I met with the trainer the first day and he said I had some problems with my plane and showed me what they were. Fair enough, so I fixed them. I met with him the second day after the initial problems were fixed and he started messing with the engine. I know I had it tuned in good because I could drive the thing around and get airborn. He completely threw my engine out of tune. Then he couldn't fix it again, and said I would have to take it home and tune it. Not only that but 2 minutes after he was done with my plane he took his own out and crashed it almost immediatly. So I lost confidence in him. So about 1/2 hour later after I got home I had the thing tuned in again. So I was tired of the problems that were caused by the trainer, come to find out he wasn't even really a registered trainer, so I took it out on my own. The first flight lasted about 60 seconds. I was all over the place with the plane. I had a hard landing and had to do some minor repairs. The second flight a friend of mine told me that it sounded like I wasn't finessing the sticks, so on the second flight I just used slight movements. Once I got it up in the air it was smooth sailing from there. Loops and rolls and stuff like that. The landing was a little rough because I ran out of gas in the air and had to coast it in. I ended up having too much speed and overshot the runway a little but but landed in some grass. I think I did beat the odds. A friend of mine in Washington has been giving me tips from what I tell him is going on when I fly. He was very impressed that I actually flew it and didn't crash it.
The flight sim helped imensly. Before I even thought about taking the plane out on my own I spent about 75-100 hours practicing on the sim. The main thing that it taught me was which ways to move the stick to move the plane. The flying was relatively similar to the sim but close enough to warrent actual help. Overall I think it was the sim that saved me from buying another plane. I would highly recommend it to anyone. By the way I used the free FMS sim and got a cable to connect my control to the parallel port on my comp.
So overall I would agree that I beat the odds. I am still expecting the crash to happen some time. It's not that I didn't try a trianer its just that I lost confidence in him when he tried to fix my plane and then crashed his. Overall I would say that I love this new hobby and will be joining the local club soon enough along with the AMA.
By the way I have tons of video game experience with flying and other flight sims and game that require flying. I don't know if this helped me at all but I'm sure it didn't hurt.