I didn't get home early enough to fly tonight. But as I said I did get my controls slowed down a little with linkage adjustment. Might switch this plane over to my computer radio and put a little expo in it, 20% or 30% maybe? I can see what that does to the movement speed while it is sitting on the table. If I can keep it up in the air long enough to get used to it then I can start moving my linkage back to where it was 1 hole at a time and also start taking out the expo. I am a firm believer in if the horse bucks you off you get right back in the saddle, but if I get bucked off again and the plane suvives I think I'll hang that plane up for a while longer. Hopefully I will get home early enough tomorrow evening and I'll give her a go and see what happens.
As for the bent tube, I could tell it had a little extra tensil strenght in it. I was going to take it over to the machine shop and cut a pipe in half lenghtwise to make a craddle for it so when I staightened it, it wouldn't collapse. But before that I just played around with a small propane torch heating one side and then pressing the tube down on a small piece of board. After 5 or 6 tries it was pretty staight. I've wielded aluminum before so had a pretty good idea how much heat to apply. It is not like steel which changes color so you can tell what heat range it is in. If you get aluminum too hot it just all the sudden melts and then all you have is a big glob.