Have you looked into the hangar 9 p51 PTS? I have seen newbies fly them flawlessey, and the good thing is once you master it you can remove the wing droops, upgrade the engine and have a wicked warbird that not only looks nice but has flaps I believe too. I do not have the knowledge of most of the members here but my friend has over 30 planes and has a PTS p51 and said it actually flew better than his first high wing trainer plane. And keep up on that real flight sim, why dont you go too knifeedge.com and download a p51 or t34 and fly it on the sim, thats what I did to master my trainer and nitro helis. I love my alpha 40 as my trainer and did not use a instructor I just practiced with the RF sim and it flew almost identical too the PT 40 on the sim but the only difference is you dont have sweaty palms and risk smashing your plane into a billion pieces LOL....My second plane is going to be a Pulse Xt 40 PNP from H9. Just gotta order it up and make the gear more durable.