I can not offer much advise, but I would think that if the plane is a proven design, the pilot has done research (planes tend to ground loop, etc.) checked and rechecked all of the controls, a good running engine and not to panic most pilots "could" do a maiden. I have a pilot friend that has been flying for many, many years but he crashed a warbird on maiden because he did not check the cg with the retracts up, or down, I forget, but when he changed the retracts it lost control and went into the ground.

In my mind, a good pilot will check, recheck and triple check everything, then hope and not to panic.