yep I remeber my old .049 u control. A cox p-40. that was 20 yrs ago wow. Man we would bust that thing to crap 10 times a weekend. always got it flying again by melting the plastic back together, oh what fun. I remeber one time slam dunking it in the basketball hoop, the enigne went flying like 100 feet still running.
As far as RC you really should get an instructor and do it right if you keep planning on dumping money into it, otherwise that all your gonna do it dump money into it, we see allot of those people come and evetually go, trust me it allot more satifying having to retire a plane after 10 yrs becuase your sick it that throwing them in the dumpster.