eskymaster has a good point.

I fly mostly glow power, generally 10 - 20 minutes, depending on the plane. These are trainer types (go for 20 minutes on these)to sort of aerobatic types (10 minutes is quite enough). Here you are looking at flying at a club field. If you go this way you will want to join a club to get the advantage of an instructor to teach you how to fly - I'll gurantee if you try to do it on your own, you may get 30 seconds in the air before you plow a furrow in the ground. Plus you get access to all the years of building and flying experience of the members.

Recently I built a GP Tutor just to see how electric flying goes. Using one of those NiMH batteries I can get 15 - 18 minutes of powered flight. With a second battery pack and field charger I can pretty much fly all day. This is pretty much a park flyer - light weight (12 ounces) - it flys in light winds. Slow enough that you could probably learn on this without too much trouble. As with any of these, learning from an instructor would minimize the rough spots in getting to the solo level.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Hope you get in this great addiction (hobby) and really enjoy it.