Good points and good advice, Xirtic 88.

To all discussing Instructor -- no instructor:

There is no doubt that anyone can learn RC or even 1:1 scale (should he live long enough) all by himself. Kind of same story here. I had been an ardent competition modeler in FF and CL for many years. I entered RC about 1970. Built a big trainer, somewhat like an "Ugly Stick" and went out to an "outlaw" field. No one there so I started up and was practicing taxi around.
Well, at the time I was very familiar with glow-engines, decent builder, and as an AF pilot, I had been supersonic both straight up and straight down. I could well fly that toy airplane. To make the story brief, when I rebuilt it, I went to a regular field and (no buddy boxes back then) with a couple flights of grab-the-box, I went solo. Believe you me it was much flying and a year before I finally really became a competent pilot with most any model of the day.

RC is as full scale. Being the hottest "Stick" does NOT a pilot make! PILOTS think ahead, plan for safety, and what the airplane can do, cannot do, and what COULD happen. On the otherhand "airplane-drivers" are just that -- airplane drivers. Just because one can get up in the air and get down without re-kitting the machine does not make one a RC pilot, but just an airplane driver.

Get a good instructor, learn the basics, get soloed, and just keep learning. If you're not the best 3D in the group, so what? I've known many a hot-stick RCer that cannot take a large untrimmed scale machine into the air without snap-rolling on TO.
There will always be airplane drivers and there will be PILOTS. It's your choice.