wow, i didn't mean to sound like a total beginner. not that that would be bad if i was. i was one day.i know all about aerodynamics and how planes fly and do what i tell them to do. i've been a jet mechanic in the airforce for close to 15 years. crew chief on C-17's for the last 5ish years and C-5's for 9ish years before that. i guess i may have exagerated a little in the original post as to not knowing much of what i can do or am doing. my main fear is the takeoff portion. i guess either the most important part or the 2nd most important only to getting it back down. they're either crazy as hell down the runway pulling all over the place like a damn snake, orsurprisingly nice and i'm so intranced in what i'm doing that i can't replicate it again to save my life. then after getting in the air, i'm pretty well shaken up from all that, that i'm still nervous for the first time or two around the pattern. i can pull off some beautiful touch and goes with only the mains of a taildragger on the ground, float the LT-25 down the runway a foot off the ground tweaking the power to keep the altitude and grease the smoothest 3-point landings with that plane. but i have dead sticked it almost down a 150 foot runway before it finally touched down. it'sgotta have like a 5 oz/in wing loading, the thing floats so much. just saying...but i guess i am scared of moving on to the low wing jobs and my beautiful cub. it took me just over 2 years in the making for that one and i actually am just finishing a set of floats so i can fly it this winter after the first snow. that's the one i will probably cry over hurting. but what's to be afraid of really? aside from crashing and rebuilding or trashing? i was reading a few minutes ago in another thread that someone said it's not a matter of if, but a matter of when. i do try to get a little cocky with my trainer and maybethat's what scares me with moving on to something i'm not used to flying. speaking of used to flying, that's kindof an oxy-moron...i don't belong to a club because i spend most of my nice summers in the desert fighting the axis of evil, that i can't see paying to join a club to get an instructor to help with the other planes. so i'm usually alone on a country road for my runway,near a big field to fly over. am i cruising for a career of building and selling, or is all of it going to get easier as i move on to different planes???? everyone else makes it look so easy when i watch them.