Dave,

It's a good plan and exactly how I started. I ended up getting an R50 Titan so that I could go to the club field and just fly. It's alot easier on the weekends to just fuel it up rather than wait on batteries. Somehow in that time I managed to pick up a couple foamies and a real nice PA katana md, two LMH nitro helis (use em for training and heli combat!). I love the helis but enjoy flying just about anything around the sky so those models fit the bill nicely.

I'd love to pick up a mid sized electric heli, I'm kinda put off by the price of lipos in that size range so I had to go with the raptor. All in all though, with the price of fuel it probably works out about the same. The Gaui Hurricane 550 is very reasonably priced, on the top of my list if I pick up another heli I suppose.

Once you get the hover basics, and actually fly in windy conditions a time or two, you should find that the Mini titan can handle it pretty good. I've flown in some rather windy conditions and while it will get buffeted around a bit it isn't so bad for just cruising around. Can get a little hairy coming in for landings but I counter that by just getting the thing on the ground, dumping in some negative pitch and then cutting the power. If you are doing a lot of 3d stuff in the wind it is worse, turning the blade disk perpendicular to the wind gives a lot of surface area to get blown around by.