A couple of weekends ago I was out at my local club talking to a bunch of the guys. One of them has been in this hobby since before most of the people on this site (including me) were even born. He was telling me stories of how a bunch of them started this group doing control line. When raidos came along they moved onto them. He said back in those days there were no instructors. None of them had any clue how to fly, except how to fly a full scale one.

He said the group of them would fly untill the planes were no longer flyable, take them home, fix them, and do it all again the next weekend. Eventually they learned to fly.

I've also talked to people who told me that the old idea of a "buddy box" was that the instructor ripped the transmitter out of the students hands and desparitly tried to recover the plane before it crashed.

We've come a long ways since those days, with simulators, buddy boxes, and all kinds of inovations to make training easier. I agree with a lot of what has been mentioned above, and feel that it's really a beniffit to the hobby. New students should find instructors, but they can also help teach themselves on simulators. Take advantage of everything you can when learning.

id_ram make everyattempt to find an instructor. If you don't, at least get a good simulator, and be prepared to make a lot of repairs to your plane.