Just another tip
If you want to dick around with a quadcopter some time, I'd also recommend the Syma X1 quadcopter. Comes complete with all the bits needed to fly, spares are plentyful and it can take a serious beating. (Hitting concrete, upside down, falling from 40 feet is not a problem I can attest). The flightcontroller is only 3 axis stabilised and a little over cautious at times, but it's good fun. And it's small enough to zip about the living room, scaring the daylight out of the cats.
As for learning to fly one, the author has it wrong, if you can turn OFF all stabilisation and help from the flightcontroller and learn to fly it like that. It's just no fun any other way. Plus, you'll still be able to fly it if you screw up your PID settings and take off a litte over-eager. Just flick the stabilisation off and land.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
