Yesterday was a pretty successful day for flying the smoothie. I warmed up by taking my clipped wing Cub up, then gassed up the Smoothie for it's maiden. I fired up the Magnum .52 four stroke (leaving it a little rich because it's still in the break in phase), and taxied out for take-off. Roll out was fine, but when it left the ground it felt like I was flying a brick. I got the trims set for level flight and the plane still felt awful sluggish, so I landed to adjust the tune a bit. I came in, maybe a little too fast, and after landing the plane started to ground loop. I rode it out as best as I could, but the prop struck the ground and stalled the engine, so I had to go for a walk. After retrieving the plane. I fired it back up and leaned the engine 4 clicks... boy did the engine respond to that. I taxied it out for take-off again. Right before liftoff, the plane started getting squirrelly, then started to ground loop again. I rode it out and got the plane in the air, and it was like a totally different plane now with the engine tuned a bit better. Speed with the four stroke is good and it will get a little better once I lean the engine out some more, large loops are nice and straight and small loops don't even hint at a tip stall. Stall turns need to be started a little earlier than my other planes to compensate for the longer tail moment and the small rudder. Rolls aren't very axial and I need to use a little more elevator than I'm used to, with a little more time on this bird I think I'll get that worked out. Unfortunately, on my third flight with this plane, the landing gear got ripped off during landing from a ground loop. I was fighting a ground loop on just about every take-off and landing, so to try to fix this I'm going to put a shorter set of main gear on the Smoothie (installed closer to the CG) and the gear will be 2 piece gear that will let me adjust a little toe-in if necessary. We shot a video of the maiden flight which I will post as soon as I get it converted. The pics below are the 3 planes I took out flying with me. A Wings Maker Clipped Wing Cub, a World Models Ultimate Bipe, and the Smoothie. All are flying with a Magnum 52 four stroke. Take care, Jerry