Wow, sounds like you had a great first experience. I don't see why they make such a big deal out of having an instructor. It seemed pretty easy for me to learn, not to brag. I only had one major problem and that was because my ailerons were reversed (silly me). I think all a person has to do to get started flying a trainer is play a lot of FMS so you can land every plane on the runway every time and then go out and test it yourself. I recently made my first actual flight (after a bunch of crashes shortly after takeoff due to my reversed ailerons) and I was able to fly the plane around just fine. The wind was around 15mph too.