After much research in this forum, I bought a Slo-V as my first plane. Like many people here I decided to teach my self to fly it. I thought I would share my experience as well.
As advertised the Slo-V was simple to get started so after charging up the battery I tried it out. I went to a soccer field near my house to give it a whirl. I decided to hand launch it as there was no suitable pavement to ROG. It went straight up like a rocket and then went straight down like a lawn dart. Luckily there was no damage. I then recalled all the stuff I read about trimming and found out the out of the box setup to be extremely out of trim. It would have been helpful for Park Zone to put something in the manual about the importance of trimming. After I figured out the trim I launched it again but by this time the wind had came up. When I say wind it was probably around 5-7mph. Its been said before over and over that the Slo-V doesn’t fly in the wind but I had to find out for myself as I precived it to be insignificant. I launched it again and this time it flew straight and level all though it was been jerked around by the wind a bit. Everything was awesome until I turned the plane around and there was a wind gust. I got disorientated and the plane kept getting further and further away. Fortunately there was a house there to "catch" my Slo-V. A broken prop and a bent prop shaft later I returned home a bit discouraged.
I went on the Internet looking for flying tips and found the FMS simulator. I downloaded it and found the Slo-V model for it. I practiced it with my analog joy pad for about a couple of hours and started to get the hang of it. Bubbling with confidence I headed back out the next morning. After the House collision I decided to find a bigger field
There was no wind at all it was perfectly calm, I hand launched it again and off it went. The time I spent with FMS really paid off. I had no problems at all with controlling it or losing orientation. It was a great sensation! Right up there with learning to ride a bike or driving a car for the first time. I brought the plane in after about 8 minutes of flying around to picture perfect landing just like I practiced on FMS. I was really stoked! I changed the battery out and was going to try the 7 Cell out (I had flown with the stock 6 Cell previously) when I plugged the 7 Cell in the ESC started to smoke! I quickly unplugged it but it was too late it was fried. I was upset and told my three year old co-pilot to cover his ears! After the ensuing stream of obscenities, I looked at the Park Zone warranty which is basically worthless after the first flight and ordered a new ESC online.
It took close to 10 days for the replacement ESC to arrive and I was itching to fly the entire time. During that time I did a lot of practicing with FMS and was getting pretty good. The ESC arrived and it was for a F27 Stryker. The part number was the same so I guess they are transferable. I installed it and headed out. Despite having plugging in the servos in the same manner as the previous ESC it turns out they were reversed on the replacement ESC. Which I didn't realize until the plane was about 50' up and I gave it some "Up Elevator." This time the impact was severe and the tail feathers were ripped from the mount and all brackets along the fuselage were ripped off the carbon. Not wanting to wait for parts again I went to the LHS and left with a much lighter wallet.
After getting everything repaired I enjoyed several event free flights. Having practiced some basic aerobatics in FMS I figured I would give it a whirl in the Real world. I was able to do some decent loops and wing over stalls and some other "tricks" that I'm not sure actually count. I was having a blast. Until the wing folded and it fell out of the sky. The last original part. I have now replaced every single part of this plane with the exception of the landing gear.
In conclusion I'm not sure if I would buy the Slo-V again. I would proablly have bought a Slow Stick as I now want to move on to something with more performance and the electronics don't transfer. It doesn’t fly very well unless it's absolutely calm which makes it hard to schedule time to fly. I was miffed about the ESC breaking which I doubt had to do with me. The wing folding after just a few loops was kind of lame as well. However when conditions are right its does fly well and in my opinion it looks really cool (I painted the last incarnation) And I have learned a great deal from all the crashes and I feel confident enough to build a beginner kit now, something that terrified me before. Anyway, I just want to thank the members of this forum for all the great posts and If there are people reading this that are lurking like I did for so long, go for it! It's really a blast and despite everything I have went through the last month it's not as complicated as it sounds. Additionaly I think I would have given up if it wasn't for FMS. It was invaluable.