I agreee, as soon as you are capable, you should maiden your planes yourself. no, don't try it the first time on $5k monster....

the thing is, maidening a plane is like sight-reading music, you can only do it once per plane (or piece of music). so the fact is, you don't get a lot of practice "maidening". however, it is a good skill to have. being able to fly a plane which is a bit out of trim and keeping it under control has on more than one occaision saved a plane for me.

re: how to do it. like others, i do rigourously check over everything. i usually try to get up to full throttle pretty quickly while on the runway and i do NOT add up elevator. if the plane jumps off and heads upstairs, you know you will be having to add some down trim soon. if that is the case, i usually don't worry about it (as long as the climb is not excessive). gentle turn around, trim aileron, then trim elevator, then fly. before too long i usually do a stall test up high to verify that it won't drop into a spin unexpectedly, then i set up for practice approaches. i usually do several approches to get used to the size/way it looks/speed/etc over the runway, then i go for landing.

i do usually open up the hatch and check all linkages before second flight....


hope that helps,
David S.