OK...
You asked for it!
I started RC back in '81.
I have been plane nuts as far back as I can remember.
I already had a pilots license so the theory of flight and all was familiar.
I progressed rapidly...solo'd the first day and all that.
Didn't know what direction I wanted to take in the hobby until I went to the Nats in Seguin, Texas.
It was fun seeing so much modeling in one place at one time. From free flight to control line, from pattern to pylon. When I saw pattern I knew that's what I wanted to do. The old AMA style of the time looked like watching the solo pilot of the Thunderbirds.
A couple years later I decided to try helicopters...for all the wrong reasons I won't go in to.
There was a club member that had started a mail order helicopter business so I had all the advice I could want. When I first started learning to hover it had been checked out, test flown and trimmed. I think that was a big advantage too.
Again I progressed rapidly.
Became a team flyer for one of the two top importers.
At the Nats in '86 I decided if I finished in the top five in F3C I would try for the US team. After day one I led! After day two I was 5th. Hmmm...how did that happen. Well, I wasn't a "name" flyer and I got politic'd. I didn't feel I should have won but felt I earned 3rd or 4th. I had been flying twice a day everyday. Buying fuel by the 55 gallon drum... it's about all I did besides go to work and mow my yard. When I left the Nats I was burned out plus I had ruined the hobby for myself with the sponsorships I received, etc. I didn't have the drive anymore to try for the US team and within a year I was out of the hobby.
Fast forward almost 20 years. We recently moved to an acreage in Iowa. I was sitting here at the PC one day this summer looking out the window when I relaized "Hey, I could fly a model airplane out there"!
So here I am back in and having a good time. Wish the weather here was like the Gulf Coast of Texas but...
At 55 I am a lot older, slower and I can't see like I used to...oh, and the nerves of steel are gone too!

I wish I had stayed with pattern all these years.
I wish I had never touched a helicopter.
I would never, ever again be a team flyer.
I AM enjoying it this time around.
Good luck!
JLK