I agree with the previous suggestions about your low-end needle. I had exactly the same behaviour with my first engine - it started promptly, idled smoothly and throttled well in the pit. Then, after taxiing out to the runway, waiting at the hold point for the guy in front, and then moving to the take-off point, I would advance the throttle and it would surge and die.

Sometimes, just to be obnoxious, it would let me get airborne and then die. I got pretty good at dead-stick maneuvering and landing, for a newbie and it's a miracle my trainer was not smashed (it is an LT-40, so that huge wing and the wonderful glide came in handy).

A couple of the "old hands" in my club spent a lot of time over several attempted flying sessions working on the needles, but couldn't get it settled down. It was obvious to everyone that the engine was "loading up" while running at low throttle, and this left it way too rich so the burst of fuel when the throttle opened just killed the engine.

Finally, I found some instructions on RCU from a member called "Dauntae" about [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_694681/anchors_694681/mpage_1/key_tuning/anchor/tm.htm#694681]low-end needle adjustments[/link]. I took the engine off the plane and bolted it to a test stand, and spent about an hour carefully and systematically tuning the low end needle (and the high end too, of course) according to Dauntae's instructions.

When I put the engine back, it ran sweet and smooth and has given no dead-stick landings since then.

So, why did the "old hands" fail to get it adjusted? Well, I found it needed quite a LOT of low-end adjustment and it didn't show much improvement over the first half- to 3/4 turns. The "old hands" had assumed that the low end needle was pretty close, and of course were hesitant to keep turning it when small adjustments gave no obvious improvement or degradation of performance.

From now on, every new engine is getting the treatment BEFORE it goes on a plane. Maybe this is the problem with your plane too. FWIW.