[Darwin]

You have been through a learning experience. What matters is what you do with the knowledge you gained from it. Digging back into my own modeling experience (many decades ago), my initial foray into 'big boy' models happened when I was eight years of age, when I jumped in with both feet into building a Comet stick and tissue model of a Fokker D-VII, even though my dad warned me I didn't have the necessary skill set for it. Sure enough, it was an absolute fiasco. So, after working through to acceptance, I then went through a series of structo-speed kits until I was able to actually get one to fly, then through a series of beginner stick and tissue kits until one of them flew. Five or six years later, I retried the old Comet kit, and managed to make it look something like the picture on the kit cover. I guess the moral of the story is first, give your advisors some credit for knowing what they are talking about, and second, there is no shortcutting the learning curve. Keep working at it, Grasshopper. This won't be the only failure on the path...but each nuclear-grade spitwad you produce will improve the odds on success on the next build. Believe me, we all feel your pain.... now clear off the building board and get started on the next one.