Ok guys. I gave her a maiden flight today.......


5 mph winds and 20 degrees out. It was a last minute decision to get her into the air and stop worrying about it. I knew it would either come home in pieces or it would be a great flyer. Luckily it was the second. I fired up the O.S. FS-91 fourstroke. The onboard glow I built worked awesome. Super low idle and this bird was just awesome spinning the 3 blade prop. I was flying off of a short back street behind factories next to my local lake. Very abandoned on cold weekends. Started to taxi. Engine sounded good and next thing I knew the tail came up I throttled up to about 3/4 by natural reaction. A split second later and zero was climbing away. It was a thing of beauty. I found the books reccomended throws a bit high for me. I had my low rates dialed down to 75% and it still felt like I had a lot of throw on the ailerons (with about 20% expo). Got my 3 mistakes high and felt the plane out. First impressions?? What a *****cat. It felt very familiar. No real differences than most of my low wing planes. In fact probably in the upper 50% as far as stability. My stalls seemed very straight forward. I didn't push the plane hard but did manage to get a loop in (I was still cautious being the first flight). The fourstroke sound with the warbirds looks was just awesome. And you know what, not once did I even notice the lack of retracts. I was too busy having fun. A couple of low speed passes with climbouts and after about 7 minutes I came in for a landing (fingers were numb). This was the tricky part since there is a 12 foot pile of snow at the end of the street where I had to make my approach. So I had to side slip it in and I came in a little hot. I had a super soft landing and I thought I was home free. But since it was a little hot I paniced and cut the throttle to kill the engine. Wind caught me and weathervaned me towards the curb. I had full opposite rudder and aileron in it and managed to just graze the curb with the wingtip. I had not expected any damage because the plane didn't even display a bump. Walked up to find it collapsed the top sheeting of the hollow wing tip. It was minor and my fault for killing the engine (and flying a warbird with minimal landing zone). I peeled back the covering, CA'd it, used a little balsalite filler. Tomorrow it will be good as new. I already have matching monokote because I had to recover one of the elevators when the original covering pulled away when I was trying to take the wrinkles out. As far as the speed of the plane. Most of the time I was at half throttle. Full throttle wasn't as scary as I thought but I didn't let it get to full speed plus I've been told a 3-blade isn't as effecient as a 2-blade prop. I liked the combo though and you can't beat the sound.