Yes, a Decathlon is a great looking little plane and many are taken in by it's looks. Heck, I'm working on building a Dynaflite Decathlon with a 89" wingspan on it. But there is something that needs to be taken into account here when considering this plane for a beginner, or a pilot with little experience. The full scale Decathlon is used primarily to teach aerobatics to pilots. Let that sink in for a second, it is an aerobatics trainer!!! Now in order for a plane to do aerobatics one thing that is desired is that the plane is easy to start aerobatic maneuvers with. And this ability it exactly opposite of what a beginning pilot needs. In your case as starting out with a plane you want one that is stable in flight and is hard to get into situations such as aerobatic maneuvers.

There are a lot of things with a Decathlon that can and will reach up and bite a beginning student when they are flying. It's more than just waiting to take off until the speed of the plane is up. I can assure you that landings are going to be a nightmare. Why?? Because every beginning pilot lands the same way. They cut the power and then let the airspeed bleed off and wait for the plane to settle into the ground. There is nothing wrong with that, as almost every student learns to do that. But if you do that with a Decathlon you are going to be picking up broken pieces of balsa. As the plane slows down it's not going to easily settle into the ground. It's going to reach stall speed and do just that, it's going to stall. And trust me, a stall at 10 feet off the ground is difficult for even an experienced pilot to recover from. And if the plane doesn't hit the ground when it stalls the first reaction of the pilot is going to be to slam the throttle wide open. And if you read what Minnflyer posted above this is bad too, because then the plane is going to throw into a snap roll from the torque of the engine. And  a snap roll at 10 feet or less is going to hit the ground!!!

Trust me, I'm not trying to take the wind out of your sails or put you down. But rather I want to see you make a successful transition to airplanes. This is not the plane to do it in. The best advice I can give you here is to put this plane away for now and get yourself a trainer. Learn to fly on that and then move to the Decathlon when you have some experience under your belt.

Ken</p>