Now that you have finished thinking about all the aspects (Remember? Money, Time & Dedication) and you have decided to finally get into RC hobby, The first ever thing that you might do is just "Start flying". Curious???
look for a good RC flying simulator. It is must if you are on your own in this hobby. What "Simulator does is, it provides almost the same environment as on your flying field. You can practice flying a wide variety of airplanes and helis even without having to leave your seat. It is really helpful to train yourself for RC flying without even having a real RC plane. Crash as many times you want without a single damage to anything. Just practice more and more on the sim (We use sim for the word simulator). You can find good deals on famous online RC stores. Just Google "RC Simulator", I couldn't possibly post the direct links because they are too many.
A good RC sim is that which includes the more and more aircrafts to fly, which comes with everything like transmitter, USB chord, sim program and so on. Also it should have a facility to change wind speed as well. Don't worry on this one too much as most of good RC sim comes with the wind and climate changeability. There are some freewares as well that you can use such as: FMS, RCDeskPilot etc. These are freewares, they cost nothing but you still have to manage transmitter on your own to start flying on the sim. Flying with you key-board doesn't make sense while you are learning to fly. It doesn't provide the feel that comes with a real RC transmitter. However you can use key-board as you play games, This will help you understand the orientation of an RC plane in air. But for practice, Buy a good simulator transmitter, You won't regret.
Note: The sim transmitters are different as they are only used with simulator. Don't buy a real Radio gear (Transmitter/Receiver which is used when you are flying in real) for now as you have to study a lot before investing money in parts. Both sim and real Transmitter looks almost same and like one below in picture.
Don't call yourself trained until you can make successful landing approaches, and fly without crashing in hard wind condition. Practice more & more on "Landing" as it is the most difficult part in RC flying. Pre-decide some flight pattern, follow it during flight, and try landing at specific runway or spot. Doing this activity in sim helps you a lot. Here is a quick example of flight pattern,
I hope you enjoy on the sim. Experience how things happen to react in air!!!
Good Luck.
