My 2 cents - as a first "war-bird" and as a second plane, the PTS P-51 would be an excellent choice. At a hundred ft away, it looks like a scale Mustang (except for the wheels hanging out). Once most the the "training" stuff is off, it is a good flying bird. Sim time is great, but as been said before, the sim has everything perfect, I've never had the experiance of having a perfect plane right of the box. I tell my students every plane has its little quirks and that you have to learn them as you fly. I would not recommend a Corsair as a 2nd plane (they can be a handful). The Spitfire is a great plane to fly and all lot of the ARFs seem to have the Spitfire gear spread out instead of where they should be, so ground handling isn't that bad.