Well, missileman, I was going to suggest that you fly a "known good" plane to "relearn" how to fly for the beginning of the season rather than to both maiden a new plane and on the first flight of the season. But what you described would have happened no matter what. Good save!!

I was helping someone re-maiden a repaired plane last year. It was very interesting and a very short flight. I did a cursory check to make sure all was ok, and asked if the plane had been pre-flighted by the owner, a fairly new but somewhat experienced flyer. He said yes, so I accepted that. So, I taxied out and prepared for take off. All was well, so I slowly pushed the throttle. Eventually, I was at full throttle and the thing was gaining speed but not yet flying. Finally, it climbed out and leveled out (without my changing the throttle, by the way). I pulled back on the throttle a bit and it immediately started to lose altitude. Back to full throttle and it just barely maintained altitude. I managed to get it around for a couple orbits, but realized it was a futile effort, so I lined it up for a landing. Quite an impressive landing, I must say, at about half throttle!!!

The plane weighed in at about 14 pounds.. heavy for this particular plane. I realized this after landing, by the way. I had him disassemble the thing and I took a look inside. He was using wrenches as nose weight... had a couple of sockets in there plus two 5/8 x 9/16" box end wrenches in there, crammed on top of the fuel tank. Tank.. a good name for this beast. I suggested he figure out a way to make the CG without having to add about three pounds of tools in the fuselage.

And, yep, I should have checked it myself rather than take the word of someone else that it was airworthy. I didn't break it, but that was based on experience, as you said, Missileman!!

CGr.