Everything went beautifully. The first flight my instructor took it up and trimmed it out. I was amazed at how fast this thing moves. I was expecting it to be much quicker than my last plane, but this thing was like a bullet. Everyone was yelling asking if I had a rocket powering it.

After it was trimmed he transferred control to me. I flew some simple ovals, just getting a feel for the plane. It is also much more responsive. Small inputs on the sticks give a lot of response. I did a quick barrel roll for the heck of it (first time) and a couple of lazy loops and just had a bit of fun with the plane, but still taking it very easy. It was also still running very rich to keep breaking in the engine. Instructor landed it. People clapped, and said I was a natural. hehe

On the second flight, he took off again and we started doing some more aerobatics like immelmans, inverted flight and snap rolls. The plane never hiccuped once. It was a pleasure to fly, very stable yet willing to go where you wanted it to.

On the third flight he hooked up a buddy box and told me to take off. This was kind of tough. I mean, your natural tendency to move an off-center plane is to use the aileron sticks because that's how you turn it in the air. I had to get used to using the left stick, which is something I never had on my first trainer. But I got it off the ground with minimal trouble. I flew around a bit with my instructor giving me advice on using the rudder and when it was applicable. (Up until this point, I hadn't touched the rudder.) He then had me try a few landing approaches.

The first approach was a little too fast, so he said the next time to cut power a bit earlier. (Still getting used to the power of this plane.) The second time I cut it about halfway from the approach turn, and that went a lot better. Third time, I brought it all the way in, and landed perfectly, but the plane hit a bump in the runway and spun around. It was slow enough that there was no damage.

I was done for the day after that. When I took off my wings, there was a puddle of fuel in the fuselage. I had to dry it all out with paper towels, but a lot of the guys told me that fuel in balsawood ruins it, and I'd most likely need a new kit. Anyone know how true that is?

All in all, the plane was great. It flies beautifully at half throttle, and at full throttle, boy look out. I checked all of the hinges and they all seem to be fine.

I was considering getting a new ARF kit anyway and using all of the lessons from this one to build a new one using nylon hinges, etc.

I have some video, but it's pretty far away and grainy. The club has a rule that when a new pilot with a new plane is on his/her maiden flight that no one else can be near the runway and no one else can be flying. So the camera man couldn't get close enough to get good shots.

Thanks again to everyone.