I've been taking a very casual attitude toward my RCM trainer. It's ugly but it's been a great learning tool. Each day I come back from the field with the thing in one piece (mostly) I figure that's one more bit of good luck but eventually it's going to crash. Not that I haven't already crashed it in some sense. Almost all of the landings so far (excelpt for beauty the other day!) are kind of low speed semi-controled crashes. I wouldn't want to be a passenger in my plane! I've also landed in on the downhilll slope of the hill on the approach line and ditched in in the brush at the end of the runway after a deadstick on take-off. But so far, all I've had to do is work on the nose-gear and re-iron some loose bits of monokote.

Now the BIG question is whether I'll be able to achieve similar ZEN detachment from the scale Eindecker I'm currently building! BTW, I plane to have the best pilot in the club take it up first and if HE crashes it, I'll know I would never have had a chance!

At least I'll have the photos.