Hi Friends,

Am new here & starting fresh in this hobby.
My only experience of this hobby so far has been watching a lot of FliteTest videos & handling a controller on a Simulator.

My entry to this hobby came about due to a small conversation with a good ol'friend.
We had caught up along with a few college friends after a long gap of over 3-4 years as he was set to move to the US on a long term assignment. We were discussing about our paragliding experience 20 years ago & I started recalling my memories of watching people fly RC Planes on Hoskote lake bed. Am sure it was an expensive hobby those days, at least for all of us in our group. We were there to be yanked off ground by a gypsy into the sky harnessed to a parachute :-) closest to flying ever & the conversation drifted into our trips, treks, our late night escapades etc. etc.

A week Later Surprise Surprise!!! 

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.
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I was handed over a lot of RC stuff leaving me in gasps, surprise & euphoria while he left with a big grin on his face 
I never knew that this guy was into RC at some point nor had he mentioned anything the day we met. 

The list of all the goodies I got stretches into pages & will be posted shortly, in summary -
1. 3 Transmitters / Receivers
2. 6-7 Planes
3. 1 Big (nitro/gas/glow - not sure)
4. A Small electric toy Heli with a separate remote.
5. A few Lipos
6. Lipo Charger.
7. Some tools & lot more.

The first & the only thing he strictly wanted/warned me to do - "Find a good mentor even before you open the boxes".
He had lost interest in the hobby due to the only simple reason, that there was not much one2one help he could get when he started off & that he lost interest after he broke a few planes too soon into it.
Bugger has a large heart to hand over such a huge treasure to me - Love u, buddy.
Small conversations, make way to fulfilling a lot of dreams.

With childlike enthusiasm ended up spending a lot of time watching videos & also read through this forum for over a month.
I finally decided to take a plunge, registered today on the forum & realized thankfully that it's not as strenuous being a member here unlike some motoring forums, a late realization
THANKS to RCINDIA for this, a big shoutout to all the admin guys.
I have a MAC Laptop & finding a free simulator & making it work was the biggest challenge so far, not wanting to use boot camp finally borrowed a windows laptop to get a hang of the simulator.

Now -
I want to get hands-on experience flying.
I want to finish a lot of builds which seems to be left midway & boxed while I don't want to fly any of them soon.
Some wisdom gained from this forum is making me lean towards a slow flier plane or a stick plane to begin with & saw one on "For sale" list too here, not sure if it's still available though.

Let me cut this long story short, bottom line am in need of a mentor who can take me under their tutelage :-) to guide me into the hobby & not away.
After reading through a lot of threads on this forum am sure there are equally & more large-hearted people here similar to my Santa Claus.
Looking forward for a long-forgotten dream to take wings :-)

JK