Originally posted by WadeH
I've never understood why people do the race-down-the-runway-and-then-rotate-when-you-think-you-have-enough-speed technique. The reason that you see full scale planes doing this, is that many full scale planes are multi engine, and if one of the engines quits, you need to have enough airspeed for the rudder to compensate for the resulting asymmetrical thrust. This just doesn't apply to the vast majority of model airplanes, and it gets people into trouble because you're just guessing at the things. If you just concern yourself with attitude, then the airplane will tell you when it's ready to fly.
-Wade
Well....not exactly. Single engine aircraft and multi-engine aircraft both take of at approximately 1.3 times the stalling speed in the takeoff configuration. We do this because we don't want to stall in the event of an engine failure or wind shear.
The technique that you advocate is what is known as the soft field takeoff. Getting the nose off the ground and accelerating until liftoff. That technique calls for you to lower the nose immediately after the mains come off and accelerate in ground effect to the normal rotation speed, and then climb out.