Half a life ago my mom picked up a partially finished, 90% of the balsa there sailplane at some garage sale... sadly that never went anywhere.

My experience is limited to as a teenager getting a 2 channel trainer, and locating just about every tree Icould find... and accidentally (yup, you read right) successfully landing once. Then a few years ago in a hungover genius decision I got a parkzone p-51, and located about every tree Icould find yet again (I was out in an area I shoot guns, easy mile or so from a building... being dumb, but playing it safe). Ihave since repaired that and set it in the back of the closet.

I'm thinking with the tax return (this married thing is pretty nice) this year I'm going to do this right, get a proper trainer (or properish by this forum's standards) go out to the local field and embarrass myself while giving someone a headache... okay, Idon't plan on doing that, just expecting a bunch of "this is simple, why can't you get it?!?!".

what I'm eying is the aerocore trainer, yeah I've read it's a flying brick.. but with my excellent skills at finding things to run into, I'm going to error on the side of difficult but stout. (I read somewhere buy the first to learn how to not crash and the second to learn how to fly... http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=7297875 )

I'm wondering what's a decent engine for this flying brick, is upping the engine size as I've read about controllable if someone keeps in mind to take it easy, or does jumping up a little (not sure what a little would be here) really do that much as far as weight and minimum power?

is starting with a four channel the way to go, and upgrade down the road? or go a little big on it now and... Working in elec engineering, having some computer programming, and a degree in mech engineering... I could see this hobby becoming "crazy project" worthy (gps guided nerf football has always been kinda a fun idea I've been kickin [pun unintended] around... that'd be awesome).

Aside from the aerocore trainer, radio, fuel tube, engine... anything else on the immediate needs list? (I understand fuel, starter, etc... but please go ahead and point these out, I need a shopping list). Saving a buck as always is good, and it helps me feed other hobbies (already trying to sell a few rifles to upgrade), please organize by "need", "should have", "consider getting", "you should want".

starting my need list with:
aerocore trainer
engine (need some recommendations, are tower branded decent?)
radio (again, could use some recommendations)
fuel line
find one of the older realflight rc sim's on ebay


Thanks