aeajr,
all I can say is amen. I've been flying for about 8 years now and I learned the hard way about the importance of range checking. Let me share my story in hopes that others might learn from it too. I was running a bit late getting out to the flying field on a saturday morning so when I got to the flying field I was a in a hurry to get in the air. Heck, I had just flown yesterday with no problems so I figured that I didn't need to waste time with a range check. I was flying a fairly new (about 10 flights) Dave Patrick Ultimate with a Saito 180 on it. I fueled up, fired up, and taxied out. Took off and on my second pass over the field she rolled over and did a full throttle death spiral into the ground, the whole time I was bending the sticks on my transmitter trying to save her. My dear plane was a three bagger, no repair possible. The area of the fuselage that the receiver was in wasn't damaged so the receiver was still in the same condition as when it was flying. Since I didn't know what caused it, I sent the radio in for a check. Came back that the receiver was bad, and a proper range check more than likely would have caught it.

What was sad is that I was in such a hurry that I didn't want to take the few minutes it would have taken to range check. Needless to say I never go up with starting the day with range check.