fmw

I learned on the E-Flite Apprentice. It isn't perfect (plastic motor and small wheels) but it is about as good as trainers get. It has very stable characteristics such as wings that stall benevolently, enough dihedral to make it tend to self right and enough power to get out of trouble. My instructor considers it the best trainer he has ever used and he has used most of them over the years. I went from consistent crashing to solo with about 20 hours on the sim and a couple of hours at most on the Apprentice. Mine now has a better motor and larger wheels for our grass field and Ilove to fly it. I took it out a couple days ago to see how she would handle the wind. 15mph with gusts up to 25. She was a handful and behaved very well for the conditions. It does aerobaticsas well as anyhigh wing dihedraled plane I've seenand is plenty powerful for sport flying.

I also have a T28. I think it would be a super trainer if you have an instructor and a buddy box. It isn't really a trainer even though the full scale ship is. But the full scale ship trained fighter pilots after all. It has all the characteristics of a sport plane. It is also a joy to fly but I think choosing it for use without an instructor and buddy box would have you digging holes in the ground with the propeller.

Deadstick's comment is on the mark. A simulator will give you lots of stick time and stick time is what you need to learn. I used Real Flight myself to learn and still use it to practice aerobatics.