Invisible1,

If you are willing to take your time and not rush...which is real hard to do sometimes, you will be fine if you pay the extra money and go with Heli Proz. I am in the same boat with you. I come from a city of 200K and none of the LHS carry any Heli's. I take that back. There is one that does carry (1) Venture and that's it. My wife went to by in at Christmas for me, but it had sold the day before. Anyway...it worked out fine. I used the money she would have spent on the Venture kit and I purchased the Venture, engine, radio from Heli Proz. Now, I am all for helping my local hobby store out, but a buck's a buck. I have spent around $1,5oo so far just to get started. $1k was from Heli Proz and the rest was spent at my LHS. I also purchased the JR 8103 which came with 811's. Not having any prior experience with heli's and very minimal experience with planes, I can tell you the 8103 is a damn nice radio! If you take your time and thoroughly go through the manual that comes with the Venture, you will do just fine. I have done everything by myself within the last 2 weeks. TODAY....I hovered for the first time on my own! I hovered that "bad boy" for 19 minutes solid (well, I did have to touch down a few times). I used a hula hoop as training gear, but all in all, I did fine.
All the literature on the Venture claims that you can be in the air within 5-10 hours of assembly time. I believe that is true if you do have prior experience. Or if you don't, you certainly could be in the air...then quickly on the ground. I spent about 1 week off and on working on my Venture before I even started it. I guess I could thank Heli Proz for that. Seeing how they forgot to ship my engine and gyro the first time (I had to wait 5 extra days for the 2nd shipment to arrive). But, that was not a bad thing. It gave me time to look everything over and really understand it. I guess what I am saying is, if you take your time you will be alright. If you rush it and go too fast you will certainly not have a good experience. You have taken the right step by joining this forum. You can learn all you need from these guys. That's what I did! I wish I could have relied on the LHS, but there was no one that was interested or flew heli's. So I was on my own. I still support them, but you have to do what you have to do. I was driven to learn this sport and come "hell or high water...I was going to do it". Today, I did! Heli Proz is really great about answering any questions that you may have along the way. Just give them a call or send them an e-mail. They truly want you to succeed and have a good experience. I ran into a few problems with my Venture, but every cure was listed in these forums. (Hint, Hint)
Just take your time and enjoy it. Good Luck!