How good are you at building, and how confident are you of your flying skills? If you build straight and within the confines of the design, you should have no problems taking it up on the maiden voyage. If you can competently handle dead sticks, stalls, spins, and inverted, you should be able to maiden a plane. Those are the four worst thnigs that could happen. The absolute worst is the engine dead just after takeoff. DO NOT try to turn the plane! Keep the nose down and land it straight. The other worst is reversed control direction. Make SURE of the proper controls!

I'll give you an example. I jumped into giant scale with both feet. My first was a 1/4 Fokker Dr.1 (my favorite plane). I built it myself. I'd only built one other giant scale plane, a Lanier Stinger. This was my first giant scale, and my first multi-wing, to fly. There was no one in my club who could help me. One cool, overcast November day, I took it out. I was by myself. I fueled the plane, and made several test taxis and aborted takeoff runs. The engine was running good. I gathered my courage, relied on my 20 years of R/C flying experience, and made a serious takeoff roll. At 3/4 throttle, after a 150' run, I gently lifted it off. To make a long story short, it flew great, and I had no problems with it!

Dr.1