My first flight was in 1968. I brake a few props every year, at one point I had so many planes i adopted the mantra “fly’em all and let good sort them out “. That ended when I lost my Zerroli Corsair when I flew it when it was not right and I new better. That was in 2002 just broken props since then 2 or 3 a year. I fly 250 flights a year, last year 325. I’m moderately risky (haha, ask Charlie) to the plane with my flying.

Prior to them I was flying 1/12 scale combat and chalked up 12 mid-airs in 4 years. I just could not get that miss the plane but get the streamer thing down. I flew low, figured the odds were in my favor if the other guy has to miss my plane, get my streamer, and miss the ground. If he flew past me after overtaking me on his attack run I would bank and turn into him. SMACK! or ribbon.

While I don’t personally customize planes to much any more I still do a lot of required maintenance. I keep a log for each plane that gets comments every time it flys, and some times when it does not. In this log I have to write something constructive about the way the plane performed and not all maintenance done. After a while the trends start to jump out of the page at you, if I’m not to dense to miss it. I also keep a needs immediate attention log in my radio boxes so it stays with the planes so I can write things down that need to be looked into. Also prevents me from taking a plane with a unrepaired problem back to the field.

Joe