I can tell you from sad experience that 99% of the time the only good place to fly .40+ sized glow planes is at an AMA field. Most of my crashes have been due to me tying to fly at shall we call them discount flying sites; places where you can fly for free like parks. But parks usually have at least one of the following: people, backstops, benches, gopher holes, tall grass, big trees, large wooden signs sticking out of the ground, powerlines, and the list goes on.

The nice thing about jumping through the hoops and joining a club is that you get use of the facilities, namely a decent runway and unobstructed flying space. On the other hand if you have a nice place to fly that does not require hoop jumpage and added expense, it's worth looking into in my opinion. But, until you get some experience with glow planes I can't really recommend you try it. You need to know what your doing first before you decide if the local open field or park is adequate for a glow plane.

Just my two cents.