In 1974, I spent five weeks building a Goldberg Falcon 56 and proceeded to self teach myself into a crash on the maiden solo flight.

I was so discouraged, I gave up flying until a couple months ago, when I built a Sig Kadet LT-40 ARF, radio with buddy box and Real Flights G4 sim software.
This time around, I joined a club, buddy boxed probably about 15 times and solo'd about 15 times, so I'm still a newbie, and everything is still in one piece! I'm having alot more fun this time around.

Buddy box over self taught all the way!