What everybody has stated is pretty true. I was in the same boat, Im a mechanical engineering student at Rochester Institute of technology. Ive always been obsessed with flight and planes. I thought i could just jump right in, as id had years of experience on flight sims and understood flight mechanics and fundamentals.

I was invited by an RCU member to come to his house where he had a field and he instructed me. He had me soloed on a Alpha 40 in 3 days of flying. Just being on the buddy box gives you the confidence to put the fear of crashing to the back of your mind and really focus on what your doing. Getting instruction is invalueble. I probably could have done it alone, but it would have cost me time in repairs and taken much longer to get to the level of pilot i am today (not saying im an expert by any chance, but i moved on to my 2nd plane after 2 months of flying, an GP escapade, and i can really put that thing thorugh its paces.) It will still be some time before im flying 3d or scale or whatever i decide i wanna focus on. But with the instruction i was given Ive got a solid step into my RC career. Also if you can find an instructor like the one I found, you'll make a real good friend.

Good luck with your Alpha, I love that bird. I usualy fly it more on a flying day than my escapade, just cause i still love flying that bird.


PS. Check out if your school has a club, RIT has a Aero Design team that i joined. Great times, we go fly together (well those of us that fly) some of the members just like the design portion. and then every year we design a plane for either the SAE or AIAA competition. Real cool stuff.