First, I go over the plane's mechanics, checking everything, every linkage, hinge, bolt, etc. If it's my plane, I check it at the shop, and check it again at the field in case I missed something. If it's someone else's I check things carefully. Check lateral balance as well as the for-aft CG location.

Double check the engine mixture settings. Nothing like a deadstick on an unproven design to make your day.

As mentioned, taxi and fast taxi/aborted take off runs are a good idea.

My first takeoff is a lot like what was mentioned above, make sure you have flying speed, and keep your departure shallow and straight. Make the first turn carefully, I'm usually doing a climbing, shallow bank 180 turn here.

As soon as I complete the first 180 degree turn, I back off the power a bit to slow things down and start to trim and get a feel for the plane. At this point I should have enough altitude for a straight in shot at the field should I go deadstick, and I can relax enough on the sticks to work the trim levers easily.

Never, ever fly in to a location where a deadstick approach would be trouble. That means keeping it high, in the center, and at a comfortable distance, not to far out, not right on top of yourself.

Fly a few laps around the field, get a few breaths, and get comfortable. If I'm still fighting with the plane at this point, I'll fight to a draw, and head in for a landing. If things are going well, try a few turns with out the rudder, try a few rudder only, see how it turns best using coordinated controls, ie how much rudder does it like in turns.

If, at any point, I get a sudden trim change, or a sudden uncommanded movement, I cut power to idle and head for a landing. Something caused it, and I want to find out what. Any sign of flutter, any kind of "what was that" or "did you see that fall off" type of thing, immediatly cut power and come in as if you are deadstick. Don't think about it, land first, then think about it. I've seen guys loose planes while they were talking out "hey, what was that" type of things. Old saying from somewhere "the first emergency doesn't kill you, it's the second emergency that kills you". So at the first sign of the first problem, head in before the secone one has time to come get you.

Speaking of landing, take a second before taking off to look around. Look where cars are parked and are not parked. Look where guys are pitted or not and look for areas that would be safe to ditch in should you have to ditch the plane. If things are going really really badly, sometimes it's best to cut power and aim for the tall grass. I've lost aileron control on planes before due to aileron flutter. Knowing where things around me are made it easy to pick a spot to crash in. Since I had elevator control, I could pretty much aim the crash.

First maneuver is usually a roll to see how fast the ailerons are. Then a loop to see how the elevator handles. On some planes, instead of a loop, I just pull up as if I was going to loop, then push out after getting vertical or near vertical. Then try pushing nose down a little and pulling out. No high-speed power dive here, just feeling out the elevator.

A little slow speed flight is next, doing it way high up. I don't usually fly in to a stall here, just seeing if I can get a comfortable approach speed that looks about right. And getting a feel for how it will handle when I go to land. I test flew a guys Stuka the other day that was nose heavy. The low speed flight told me I wouldn't be able to keep the nose up on approach, so I had to use a non-normal approach to landing so I didn't run out of elevator on the way down.

Depending on the plane and it's intended use, I might do straight ahead stalls and spins followed by snap rolls next to see what happens. Usually on a later flight. I might do a straight ahead stall on the first flight depending on what I saw in the slow speed flight earlier.

I then check for signs of control flutter. This is done by starting with full throttle level flight. Then going to a shallow dive, then trying a steeper dive etc, all the while listening for any buzzing or fluttering noise or seeing any hunting or movement with the plane. If your plane is solid, but starts what looks like a little odd roll hunting, that's sometimes aileron flutter for example. Some planes will also show a bit of pitch hunting at high speeds that's not due to flutter but can be fixed.

Somewhere in here I also like to try a vertical climb as well. Just to see how much pull it has, and also check to see if the engine and fuel system is doing it's thing. Be ready for a deadstick here though.

Much of the test flying I do is with my combat planes. For those I have a bunch of specific tests that I do next to test out their handling at very high G forces, looking for snapping out of loops and turns at high speed and such.

For an acrobatic plane, there is a bunch of trimming and testing type stuff that comes next that will help you sort out the rest of the plane.