What we do here is so cheap that you don't have to wait. First step is to learn how to fly, of which there are three ways:
1. Build the cheapest plane, chuck it in the air and see how long you can keep it there before it crashes. That's normally about 3 seconds the first time, then it gradually gets longer until after about an hour continuous, you can keep it in the air for a whole flight. The problem is that the plane will most likely be wrecked within a few minutes., though it's nothing to worry about because the expensive electrical things have very good survivability
2. Build any plane you like. Take it to a flying club and ask an experienced pilot to buddy-box you. He should be able to trim the plane out and get it flying nicely before handing over control. Trimming is very important. It's the first thing you must do with a new plane. It's simply adjusting the start position of the servos so that the plane flies straight and level without any input from you. That makes a bit of a problem with method 1 above because if you can't fly, you're not going to be able to trim it, which will make it less easy to fly.
3. Buy a $10 "22 in 1 RC Flight Simulator". You can crash your plane as often as you want, then take off again straight away without having to do difficult repairs. This method works very well in conjunction with method 1. You can find them on Ebay, Amazon, Aliexpress, Banggood, etc. You need a transmitter with a trainer port. Most transmitters have the trainer port, but you need to make sure that whichever one you buy does have it.
If I were starting again, I'd start with a cheapo transmitter that has a trainer port and an external module bay. You can get by with a 4-channel one, but if you can find a cheap one with more, so much the better. Once you have learnt to fly and decide you want to stay in the hobby, then you can get a decent transmitter. Bear in mind that cheap transmitters can fly a plane just as well as an expensive one.
There are hundreds of different transmitters. and each can use one or more communication protocols with the receiver. This is where it can get confusing. Just make sure that the transmitter and receiver both use the same protocols (like DSM2, DSMX, FASST, FrSky d16., FrSky D8, etc), e.g. both transmitter and receiver must be DSMX. For Flitetest planes, you don't need any fancy receivers. they work fine on the ones that you can get for less than $15 from all the normal cheap Chinese stores, so it might be a good idea to start from the receiver and see what compatible transmitter you can get. Flysky sets meet those requirements, and there are a few others too, which someone will probably point you at in a later post.
