Letting an expert do the maiden seems sort of like letting the king sleep with all brides prior to their marriage. My feeling is that learning to do a successful maiden flight is as much a part of learning to fly as doing that first solo. It's just not the same when someone hands you an already trimmed model and a complete flight report of things to watch out for. Certainly, I'd never give up the maiden for a sport or sport scale model.

That having been said, I do accept that there are times when there is so much on the line with a special scale model that doing the maiden yourself can be foolish. I did have someone else maiden my EIII, because at the time I finished it, I had just started RC flying and only had about 10 solo flights under by belt. And I've even begun to accept that maybe it would be better to have my friend and ace flyer do the maiden on my Snipe. There's just too much riding on this. It's the "prototype" for CD ScaleDesigns and I've also just heard that an editor from one of the Japanese RC magazines wants to do an article on it and may even put it on the cover. He's sending a photographer in June or July. If it were just me, alone on the field, flying a model for my own enjoyment, I'd go ahead and do the maiden myself...come what may. But now there are other people to consider as well.