Thanks for the input, guys.

If you catch my other post in the beginner's section, I fired it up for the first time this weekend and did just that. I started it w/o blades, and the idle was low enough to not engage the clutch. I slowly increased throttle until I saw the head start to rotate slowly, and then killed it. I bumped my idle level up a little based on that (original setting was too low and would stall out) and put the blades on.

After I fired it up with the blades on, I realized that as long as I had a firm grip on the blade grip, I had nothing to worry about (it would just stall out if the clutch kicked in).

Got her trimmed out after 2-3 tanks of gas, and hovered for another 4 tanks this past weekend! Man, is this fun! Hard to believe that I built it from bags of parts, and it actually flies! Couldn't have done it without the G2 sim or the advice I got from you guys here in the forum!