My instructor treats learning how to fly like a nice easy stroll through the park. Once he gives his initial instruction, which takes around 5-10 minutes, he starts chatting about anything under the sun and once in awhile, he'll though in a little instruction.
In other words, he makes learning to fly very, very easy.

After awhile, I realized what he was doing. He was taking my mind off of the flying process and allowing me to relax and the trainer to fly. One time I was getting a bit nervous again and flying the plane rather than letting it fly. So he took the tx (no buddy-box) and set the tx on the ground and stepped back. He let it fly and lazy circles completely on it's own. After he calmly went over and picked up the tx and then handed it to me, I was almost totally relaxed. He certainly did make his point.

The other incrediable thing he did was have me look down at the stick as the plane was flying. He did this for about 5 minutes, meaning for 5 minutes I did not look at the plane at all. A spectator who had been there since we took off, said that I flew much better when I didn't see the plane. Again, my instructor made his point. Man, so many people had me believing that learning to fly RC planes was a very difficult thing to do.

Among many other things, I learned to mentally pace myself, meaning that I had no trouble flying for 4 tanks of fuel that day. Each tank lasted 25 minutes (field charger/12oz tank/TT.46, on a Eagle II).
In that time, I learned to takeoff, do figure eights, loops, rolls, and shoot many touch and goes, without stopping the engine.
Not to demean them, but it sure beats the ten minute once a week of stress session with the club instructor. The spectator got a chance to fly and did almost as good as I did, but the difference is, he had never even touched a RC tx before!

nascarjoe