Not necessarily. I took a 17 year break. All I needed to get my wings back were 3 sessions at the field with 3 different instructors. I was flying my old Aamco X-ray. I had the instructors takeoff and land the first couple times so I could get my orienation back with the plane at a comfortable altitude. On the third session the instructor told me I was not going to play around up in the sky, I would do my 3 landings in each direction, and all the other obligitory things, so we could get this over with. I probably would have only needed one session, but the %$^& old Supertigre engine kept dying on us so I only got a limited amount of flight time the first couple sessions. Didn't use a buddy box and I didn't need any "saves" by the instructors. As soon as I soloed I put the X-ray, and that nasty ST engine, and started flying the Modeltech Extra 300S ARF. I would have been quickly bored with a trainer.