As I am a beginner and I made this mistake. I choose to call it a beginners mistake rather than just plain stupidity.

Allow me to set the scene:
I took my boys flying yesterday for the first time since last fall. THey had lost interest over the winter but I cleverly purchased Real Flight G2 figuring they would see it as a video game and it worked. They are raring to fly. I took my 12 year old up first. It was fairly windy but steady and I took off with no problem. Another guy helped get the buddy box trimmed and my son did very well. THe simulator helped a lot. As a reward for flying several consecutive circuits under good control I let him try a loop. No problem but ran out of gas at the bottom of the loop. Also no problem. Plenty of altitude and I dead sticked it in gently right on the runway. The boys wanted to see me fly my Phaeton, which I have only flown once. I soloed three weeks ago and have flown only twice since then. I should not even be flying the quick little bipe let alone on a windy day. With the nice dead stick landing inflating my ego, I got the plane ready. I spent some time setting up dual rates so I would have a more gentle take off and landing. It is pretty twitchy on the ground. I taxied a bit and ran onto the grass an flipped over. Changed the split prop. Tried it again. When I gunned the engine for take off, it started veering and I got into an over controlled oscillation from side to side. I should have throttled back but I didn't. I took off, winged over and did two cartwheels. Crunched the fiberglass cowl and creased the horizontal stabilizer. Broke another prop. OK, other than flying a plane I should only be looking at for now and flying it in too much wind, the big problem was... any guesses...?

I had set up dual rates perfectly. I neglected to set the rates to low on take off! No wonder the thing was darting all over the place. The rudder throw was as far as it would go without hitting the elevator.

I promise to always check the rate switches prior to take off from now on! I will also put a number of hours on the trainer and the fourstar before the phaeton leaves the hanger again.

Jeff - repairing the Phaeton - Chumley