A club/instructor is always available; the question is convenience. I cannot in good conscious suggest anything other than a beginner needs to find a flying club and instructor.
And see, this is exactly my point. If we continue with this mindset that a club/instructor is ALWAYS available and the ONLY way to learn, we're not helping those guys who can't, for one reason or another, hook up with one.
Guys, I am not proposing that we steer beginners away from clubs. Nor am I suggesting that we stop persuading beginners to seek out a good instructor. What I am saying is that when a beginner writes in with a question and also mentions that he has no one else available to answer the question, the first ten or twenty responses almost always imply (and sometimes not just an implication) that the guy is foolish for trying to learn R/C outside of a club. Often to the point that the guy's original question doesn't get addressed. Did anyone notice that the guy's location was Boondocks, MT (population 3, 1 of which is his dog)?
There are probably a good number of us here on RCU who learned to fly R/C before it became a "common" hobby. We successfully learned to fly on our own even though we got a lot of experience with Devcon 5-Minute Epoxy and Band-Aids in the process. Therefore, it CAN be done. We need to stop inplying that only fools try it.
...self teaching on a 40-60 sized glow trainer which could easily cause death.
I wouldn't encourage learning with such a large/fast plane either; not much unlike someone who tries to learn how to ride a motorcycle by buying a 1750cc Yamaha crotch rocket. I agree that a good first plane is something small like a Park Flyer.
I want to learn how to shoot firearms, but the gun club is too far away...
You're forgetting that millions of farmboys have successfully (and safely) learned to handle firearms by plinking at soda cans behind their barn.
Harvey