Try different planes than just the nexstar. If you are going to try to learn to fly on your own(no instructor), practice on the sim until you can fly and land every trainer (and some of the other planes) on the sim almost every time you try without damaging the plane then you will have a much better chance of success with your real rc plane. Also, when you do fly a real rc plane, you don't have to land on the runway, so don't use up your battery trying to. After you get so you can land good in the grass is when you start trying to hit the runway. here is a pic of me walking out to where I landed the first time (with the nose wheel 2inches from a prairie dog hole)