What a gentle giant this is. you certianly will do well to learn on this. Personally I think you can find other trainers that won't set you back as much as this one.
One draw back is that once you have a few flights under your belt, I think you will get bored with the limitations on this plane.
If you are going to spend this much $ You might want to check out the following link. It is for a Mini Ultra stick. This will give you the stability of a nice trainer plus the abillity to do some more challenging manuevers
http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products...ProdID=EFL2250
or
http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products...ProdID=EFL4025
the ultra 25e offers the same size plane for roughly the same $ but will give you much better performance.

Hope this helps...the key is to get up and start enjoying!!

Mark