Hey, it's really good advice to try and find a club/instructor within say a couple hours drive.

Here is the club listing page from the AMA website. http://www.modelaircraft.org/clubsearch.aspx Put in your zip code or just the state and you got a list in a heartbeat. "Give 'em a call." Most of them will be happy to setup a meeting with an instructor. Having someone look over your plane and radio and doing a couple of buddybox flights would be more than worth whatever it takes in time and gas for you.

BTW, where did you buy the P.51 trainer? They ought to have a line on someone who'd be glad to help.

BTW, two days ago, one of our better flyers had a buddy from work out to our field as a guest. The buddy had bought that P51 trainer and the experienced flyer hadn't seen it. He was less than enthusiastic about it, figuring it was just a gimmick. So he didn't hook up the buddybox for the first flight. He just did a trim flight. And was he amazed. The sucker is slow enough with all the trick training add-ons and flies like a trainer ought to. His 2nd or 3rd pass while learning how it handled on approach was scary slow.... and rock stable. The buddy flew a bunch of his 2nd and 3rd flights. The buddy seemed to have the touch and I'd have guessed would have solo'd that day except the engine mount loosened up (not unusual for ANY new model). And the loosened engine mount was something the buddy didn't have a clue to look for. He also really didn't know how to set the engine in spite of knowing the words from the instruction book by heart. Going at it by yourself can work out for the good, but probably won't.