Since this IS a beginner's forum.....

Pulling from my 40 years of experience, and using yesterday's experience as the freshest........

Two guys yesterday asked me to help them figure out what was wrong with their engines. One guy has been flying ARFs for a couple of months. This guy is SHARP. He is absolutely dependably a safe and really decent, reliable flyer. I'd let him fly anything I own and would go off and help somebody and not even bother to watch the guy. He isn't going to do anything with my plane that he thought he couldn't do etc etc etc His engine was loose. One bolt had come loose. It really was the first time he'd ever encountered that trouble and when I showed him the engine-to-mount looseness, he said, "guess I need to check the mount (to-firewall) too, hunh". This guy is sharp but inexperienced and didn't realise those suckers would loosen tight bolts.

The other guy has been flying ARFs for 3 years. He is really good. He's got talent and "the touch". He is also sharp at a tack. He had a brand new ARF he'd just finished sticking together. Engine hadn't even been run yet. It ran pretty good considering. It was hard to start. All day. Toward the end of the day, after fighting an engine that was breaking in, the airplane developed a bad vibration. The mount was loose. And three of the engine bolts took a quarter turn. He was "pretty sure" he'd tightened everything good enough last night. He probably had.

That was just the last flying day's experience. It looks like it's going to be an excellent flying day today. Think I'll swing down to the basement after I finish this bowl of cereal and check the charge on everything and check all the motors for looseness. Won't be going until this afternoon when it's up to 40degrees, but checking that stuff while it's quiet here is so much easier. And it needs to be done while I've easily got time. And it's easier to pull a muffler if I have to while I'm in the shop and it's warm and I don't have the frequency pin and somebody's waiting and......