You people make it sound SO harsh. To be honest, I was self taught. No instructor no nothing. I did however have alot! of expirence with how aiplanes work (flying simulators my whole life) but just not RC sims, commercial plane sims and they are way harder than a stupid little RC sim. All you really need to know is the basics of how flight actually works, either read about it or learn it over a sim. Also I know a great deal about nitro engines and how engines operate, that too will help you alot in terms of maintainig it and breaking it in. They're are plenty of good websites for beginners like us to read about RC plane.

You wanna know my first solo flight was? none of you are gonna believe me but its true. My first solo (even my friend was just looking at me to say "Are u f-ing serious?!", was in severe weather. First it was sprinkling, and i didnt care I was just so eager to fly, took off with no trouble and then the heavy rain came and was pissing down. A few wind gust here and there, I couldnt believe it. I flew for about 5 mins and I said to myself "this is getting rediculous" so i made a crash landing, and to my suprise it landed quite good. Shut everything off and raced back to shelter. What an idiot i said to myself. Im sure people have had worse cases of this, but for a begginer, I was just plain stupid to do that. Now im enjoying my solos on my own, and im loving it!!!

I think its ok to teach yaself, just gotta know the basics.