Same story here as erked. First solo flight ever, no instructor, very, very geeked. Launched and plane began a shallow decent. I gave a little "up" stick and the plane decended even faster banging the nose a bit hard but nothing too serious. Sat down, calmed down, took a good look at things and guess what? THE ELEVATOR SERVO WAS REVERSED. After reading these posts I'm thinking this must be a pretty common occurance with the ARF's. It flys a lot better now a days and it's the best beginner plane out there as long as you have a bit of room to land it in.