I had a very interesting maiden flight today. I have been building a GP .60 size Cub for about the past four months and I finally got it all ready to fly. Today was my birthday so it seemed like a good day for the first flight. I tried to make sure everything was set up on the plane perfectly before I arrived at the field. I even spent a couple hours yesterday running the engine just to make sure it was properly set up.

The first problem happened when I was on the way to field, it started raining. It seems to do that in Florida just when you least expect it (the weather here is not pleasant at all). Anyway, I figured I would just wait it out and by the time I got the field it had pretty much let up. I get everything out of the car and get it assembled. It takes awhile to get all the wing struts on and by the time I was finished it started raining again. I wasn't going to let it stop me so I forged ahead anyway. I fueled it up and it started with no problems. I taxied it out to the runway and other then the rain everything was going fine. This is the biggest plane I have ever flown (the wingspan is 90" ) so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

I gradually advanced the throttle and it was on its way. It went about 75' and it started to get very difficult to control on the ground and then it did a ground loop. I have heard people talking about this with Cubs so I figured it might happen. Everything was still fine with the plane, it was just sitting there facing the other direction. I taxied it back to the starting position and tried again. The ground loop happened again and again and again. I'm starting to get a little frustrated at this point and it is still raining. Then I had another surprise, the engine quit running. When I went to restart it I couldn't get it going for anything. I came to discover that it was too hot. I will need to get some more air flowing through the cowling.

I flew another plane for a few minutes and waited for it to cool down. Once it was cool it started right back up again. By this time at least the rain had stopped. I tried to takeoff again and I kept having the same problem, it just wouldn't go straight down the runway. Then it dawned on me that I wasn't using enough elevator to initially hold the tail wheel on the ground. I was trying to go easy on the elevator because I didn't want an early takeoff. I thought I had everything figured out and I just knew it was going to lift off this time. I had it in position and started to advance the throttle when the engine quit again!!

At this point I was about ready to make an anchor out of the whole thing. I waited for the engine to cool down again and then got it restarted and back on the runway. By using some more elevator I was able to control it much better this time. It had picked up quite a bit of speed so I figured it was now or never. It rotated and was finally airborne. It was an amazing experience to see a plane of that size lift off. I did a real shallow climb and started my turn. It flew beautifully and I didn't even need one click of trim for it to fly hands off. I flew around for a few minutes and brought it in for a landing. I had no problems with the landing and it came to a stop right in front of me. I decided to give it one more try and this time the takeoff was even better. I flew around some more and then when I was on the landing approach the engine quit. I was able to bring it in just fine but I decided that I should quit while I was still ahead.

All in all I guess everything ended well but it sure was a frustrating journey getting that thing in the air. Here are some pictures: