ORIGINAL: Downtrodden
He's usually the one that wipes his plane down BEFORE he flies it (or attempts too, anyway). I pay particular attention to the guy that brings all his gear to the field and sets it up only to sit there and try to develop his "nerve" through osmosis, telekinesis or some shwit like that and then packs it up and leaves......when he finally shows up with enough "nerve"you're usually guaranteed a show.
Peace,
Downtrodden
Downt, my ears are burning. I think you are talking about me a few years ago. I bought a hot little .25 size Extra and took it out to a big club field in Bakersfield for the maiden. I got it all ready to fly, and just couldn't quite get up the nerve to pull the trigger. I was thinking about asking one of the better pilots to maiden it. I must have wiped it all down about three times. Finally the guy next to me said "you gonna fly that thing or not?". I thought, well, it's just a brand new plane, new engine, new radio gear. I'm not going to let someone else crash it. I took off ok, and realized then how fast it was, After flying around a bit, I chopped the throttle to see how much it would slow down. It didn't. I finally swung it around for a whistling death landing and just cleared the fence on one end of the runway. I set it down and used the whole runway, skidding it sideways into the weeds on the other end, bouncing all the way. After taking the plane back to the pits, some old fart said " that lands kind of fast, doesn't it."