I think you should first learn to walk before you try to run. You should be an accomplished modeler and flyer before delving into this. Your original question speaks volumes to the contrary.
All it will take to get my hobby shutdown is to have some Bozo with a $200 ARF UAV crash into someone's windshield 10 miles down range.
What is there to learn here? How to assemble a bunch of pre-engineered Radio Shack components into a preassembled plane built with slave labor in China?
I'd be more impressed if you built your own rubberband powered free flight glider and went through the learning process to get it trimmed out.
That would be more of an accomplishment than gluing a bunch of plug & play stuff into an ARF.