YES, it is possible (I did it with heli's), but it is dam hard if your forced to do it alone, and NOT recommended if you have the option to learn off others.

I had my first EVER real stick time on my 60 size plank trainer Sunday just gone (or any other plane for that matter), and having someone to nurse it down in the wind was a godsend, as even though I can fly my nitro heli alone, the plane and the way it responded were not at all how the sim 'felt' (I'm currently changing the sim response settings to be more realistic, but I don't think I'll get it 100% right in all fairness), and that 'feel' is going to be the tough bit being as I understand the theory from my time on the heli's and sim.
On a side note, being as the motor dies 5 min into the first flight, also good to have the guy there being able to do the dead stick landing for me!. Aside from the actual flying, getting the control surface throw's just right was required prior to take off too, as they were just too big as I had them set up.
For me, the day taught me it's going to require some time from myself to get me comfortable, but that was always to be expected despite letting my ego get me to a point where I thought I'd be some kind of flying god. As I always feel it's good to keep your ego in check, and even more so when you have a large wooden model in a 3D space going 100kph weighing over 2-3kg with a large alloy thing and an 11 inch blade spinning at 5000-9000RPM's.

I'm gonna leave my rant with two simple points:

1) If you have to learn on your own, do it always from people and property and be safe with it (ie, just use the grey matter between your ears, and look to understand as much as you can about your model and how it works/flys BEFORE you let rip).
2) If you can, go join a club and get help, people in this hobby are normally happy to help and pass on what they know - well .... 99% of the time they are anyhow!!