Hello Adam,

Welcome to Heligods. Do you have a flight simulator like the Accurc, PhoenixRC or Realflight 8? If you don't I highly recommend on getting them to practice on.

 

As Adam mentioned, a flight simulator is a must to progress without spending a fortune on repairs. I advise to first buy a simulator that uses the same mode transmitter as your controller (neXt, phoenix, Accurc as mentioned above) and start learning figure 8s in both directions - and from left and right of field. Spend about 20mins per night - every night on the sim untill you can do figure 8s and hover in all orientations. Once you have the hovering and figure 8s down pat, you can then start to fly for real with fewer incidents. I used to first practice the sim for 20mins , then fly an MCPX every day in my back yard for another 20 - to 1/2 hour. An MCPX is a very small collective pitch heli that can take a few crashes and wont kill your cat if it goes out of control. Practice practice practice. There is a great tutorials section here...