OK, I'll start things off with my first lesson learned...

I built my first plane, a Sig Kadet LT40 from a kit. I built the plane over a few weeks as I had time. I finally got the whole thing together and brought it out to my local flying field and unintentionally became the entertainment for the afternoon.

I set the plane up on one of the setup tables and all the very experienced fliers looked it over and made comments. Everything appeared to be fine so the resident expert with all his 40 years of experience took it up for its first flight. It flew great and he commented on how nicely it flew.

He was just about to hand the radio over to me so I could give it a try when something flew off the plane. It was the elevator...

At this point I can now say OOPS and laugh about it. Guys at my club still talk about it!

What happened was in the process of building the plane I finished the tail section a couple weeks before the final assembly and the hinges were only fitted but not glued.

For you noobies, the elevator is the worst control surface to do this with since there is no getting around not being able to control the pitch of the plane.

Luckily the plane was at the far end of the field and heading in the right direction when the event happened. All my instructor could do was let the plane come down so it !QUOT!landed!QUOT! in the center of the field where it wouldn't hurt anything. It came down hard on the nose wheel and bounced about ten feet back up in the air. I really was lucky to have a plane left after that.

Here is item #1 for the list...

1. Tug on all hinges and make sure they are properly secured and working correctly.