I started a few weeks ago on a Midwest Aerostar, and I'm only now coming to the end of the first gallon of fuel. I've solo'd, can fly the plane at a constant altitude most of the time, I constantly coordinate the rudder to turn, and can land it without bouncing (well, once out of three landings, but getting better at that).

The thing is that I've had people volunteering so much information about my next immediate steps before the season is even finished: cutting the dihedral out of my wing, buying a new ARF for a sport plane, shoulder wing, another trainer, a low-wing, a bigger plane, etc etc. I'm not in any hurry, as I expect to be in this hobby for a long time.

I built a kit for my first plane, and now for my next plane I'm building from plans, a constant chord low wing plane. I've shown the plans to an instructor and he thinks it will be an easy flier, and that's fine with me. Why? simply because I'm not in a hurry, I know I won't finish building until next season and I'll learn at my own pace. If it takes me a two dozen flights to learn to fly that low-wing in a perfect circuit and land it smoothly before even trying a roll, I'll be happy for the challenge.

I think too many people try to pressure new fliers into progressing the way they did. Just because someone buys an highly aerobatic plane as a second plane, doesn't mean that person MUST do aerobatics on their first flight (or dozen flights) with it or fly it full throttle around the field (I personally like flying at quarter throttle with my Aerostar)!

What's the worse that could happen?