The maiden flight was yesterday. The best way to summarize it is, "All's well that ends well."
The plane taxied well and responded well to rudder-controlled steering on the ground. In position facing into a mild headwind it took off in 50 to 75 feet at about half throttle in a nice level attitude - just floated off the ground.
In the air, things started to get hairy. When banking for the first turn, the low rates I had selected based on the manual didn't give me enough aileron authority... so I switched to high rate. The tail tended to drop - a lot - in turns. And even though the plane is perfectly balanced according to spec it flew like it was tail-heavy. I was flying a downwind leg on the third circuit working on the trim with a buddy at about 3 mistakes high when a small shiny object detached itself from the front of the plane - the spinner. As high as it was I decided to bring the plane in - on the crosswind leg there was a change in the engine note - a kind of rattling started. And on final, still descending and going too fast, the engine quit and I saw that the prop had gone too.
I ran out of runway but managed to set it down in the muddy outfield in one piece - from what I can see there is no damage to the airframe (that's the "ends well" part but I will be going over it thoroughly). But the single bolt prop adapter I had installed on this engine sheared all four of its bolts and disappeared. We walked the field but did not find it.
This is not the first time I've used a single bolt prop adapter - there's one on the RCGF 32 that powers my Pulse 125 - it's had a few flights and has been fine.
So now I've got to wonder - was the adapter, purchased new from Valley View RC - defective? Or was the engine - purchased used on RC Canada - involved in a crash that may have bent the crankshaft? I take full responsibility - caveat emptor and all that - but I have contacted the seller with the question, which I should have asked before I bought the engine. I'm hoping for an honest answer but if the response is "no crash" than I'll have to decide whether to take that on faith.
In the meantime I think I'll check the runout on the prop hub with a dial indicator. We'll see what, if anything, that reveals.
If I'm being honest myself, I should have seen this coming. When I test-ran the engine on the plane the weekend before this, I could see vibration in the prop arc. I thought at the time it was just due to the vibration of the plane at idle but I've since realized that I've never seen wobble like that in an idling engine before. Live and learn.