Well, we maidened the Decathlon today. Ground handling is surely a handful. After getting Mr. Chester to double check everything after Ben and I had trilpe checked evreything the time came when there was nothing left to do but put it in the air. Ben's first attempt was just a run down the runway to get the feel of it. It looked pretty squirelly. He run it back to the end of the runway and said here goes Dad! He eased the Good Gulf to it slowly and made a really good looking take off. It took a couple of clicks of right a and one click of up and he was flying. He made about a 5 minute flight then a couple of false approaches before setting it down. He done well on the landing also. We went over everything again before his second take off, which was not as good as the first. Best way I can describe it is the track a sidewinder rattlesnake leaves. He did get in the air ok. Inverted is good with very little elevator, knife edge is great with only about half the rudder. Hammerheads galore, Ben had a ball with this plane. He flew 4 tanks through it and brought it home the same way we left with it. The TT Pro .46 with a 11/6 APC prop pulled it just fine even though I had it tuned about 1000 rich of lean as it is a new engine. I believe after a few more tanks of fuel we can lean it and put a 11/7 on it and get even better performance. I think Ben is really going to like this plane...... kinda got me wanting one..... may call Tower after while and see if they got another
