"Lastly, I noticed on fly buys that when I went back up to full throttle I did not hear a very noticeble rise in RPMs on my OS 40 LA. Did I fry her? What are the signs of a fried engine? Thanks again. Much appreciated. "

First sign of a fried engine is usually difficult starting and poor idling. You can do a quick check on a simple bushing motor like that.

1. Install a prop and glowplug on the motor as required
2. Try to wiggle the prop. On a bushing motor a little play is normal, alot isn't. Since it was running last time, and you're not commenting on that rattling noise and oil dripping rapidly from the front of the engine, the crank bearing is likely just fine.
3. Pull her thru compression. Got compression? Good engine. If you hand prop it like your starting it, does it "plop" over and sort of bounce of compression a couple times before the works come to rest? Good.

Note that an engine that hasn't been run a few days may be slightly stiff from the lubes in it. A drop of air tool oil will loosen this up for the tests above. Never apply glow to an engine you don't intend to start. None of the above tests need fuel or glow. The only thing they don't test is the carb.

While you have the engine out, check the backplate screws. They can loosen in time causing poor performance.

When a glow engine carb is about 1/2 open, they're making about 80% of full power. Throttle response is not linear. So, if you do a medium speed pass, the rpm's won't increase much when you firewall 'er and pull up.... Already doing pretty good RPM's and you add load by climbing.

Don't worry, it's likely fine. Those LA's run a LONG time, unless you run'em too lean.

J