Before you shell out the expense of a 140 powered ship, it would probably be a good idea to try out pattern with a Chaos type ship. My first plane was an Utter Chaos with a Fox 60. It was light, straight, and cheap... and flew like a bat out of a hot place... You don't need something complicated or expensive to enter, or even win the in lower classes.

A Chaos, or anything with a symmetrical airfoil, low wing, .60 is great. With that airplane practice doing manuvers right in front of you, centered, at the same distance, along the same lines... over and over again. Pattern is discipline, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper to do this with 10% nitro than 30%...

my $.02