I went out and bought a used Tower 40 from a respectable guy at my local shop after days of thought. It is in great condition and am hoping to get it running this weekend. It has an older OS 40 FP engine that is supposed to be in good working condition too. Does anyone have any tips on a newbie at RC who has a few hundred hours in actual 172's and 182s???

From what I understand the "Feel" of flying real planes vs. RC airplanes is a lot different even though the physics are exactly the same, thats what fellow RC'ers that are also real pilots in my club tell me. I would recommend you find a club and make your 1st few flights on a trainer box or at bare minimum with an experienced RC pilot there to help you.
Just my $.02 worth

wow, fast response!! Thanks, and I can guess that my thumb movements will need to be a bit smaller than in the real thing. I'm hoping to go out to the field this morning to see if she'll fire up and maybe do some taxi tests. I don't plan on going solo anytime soon. By the way, i've sent an application for AMA through the internet as of yesterday and I've spoken with the club president here and says I need the membership. Does that mean I can't have any fun before my card gets to me??

Yup!
While the knowledge of piloting full scale planes is nice, it's not even close to RC piloting,
much past theories and principles of heavier-than-air flight itself. Definitely get with
an instructor for those first few flights... until you see what it's all about. Things happen
a lot quicker with an RC plane, and you don't have the seat of the pants thing going on, either.

RC flying isn't hard, but there are a few gotcha's that the experienced guy will help you avoid,
and you might end up having the plane for more than a few joyous seconds of that first flight.
No shame in letting an instructor check it out first... then take it up and trim it all out, and let
you get your hands on it so you can see what it's all about... what kind of movement you need
on the sticks, its flight envelope, how to control it when it's coming toward you, etc... all that stuff.


Hey, you may be a natural, and solo on your first flight out... but that's awful rare


Edit... (because you had replied again before I got posted.)
Be careful with those "taxi tests" and don't let the bug bite you that has bitten hundreds or thousands!
It's so easy to get comfortable with taxiing, and think, "oh, just a little hop, then right back down."
That works sometimes, if you have the space... but more often than not, you either fumble it, or the
plane is badly out of trim, and you overcorrect a bad condition and make it worse, and the next thing
you know, you're staring at a pile of sticks wondering what went wrong. (must've been the radio... yeah!)

You can get verification from AMA that you paid for it. They faxed me a confirmation paper about 2 hours after I sent them my information. This paper is good enough to let you fly until your card comes in the mail.

I actuall talked to a couple full scale pilots about rc flying also. In my opinion, the biggest difference is going to be control reversal. You know, when its coming at you , left is right and right is left sort of thing.

Wings

Wings is right. You should get an e-mail from the AMA with your membership number on it. (Or ask them to FAX you one.) Most clubs will accept that.

Glad you're going with a club; just be sure to get with an instructor as well. I've seen a few full scale pilots try to fly thinking, 'this should be easy, I fly the real ones', only to look really stunned when the plane is trashed ten seconds later.

It really IS a lot different than full scale.

Just be sure that you don't run the engine too lean. These little engines are pretty easy to tune, but a single lean run can ruin them. (It won't always, but it can.) The OS 40 FP, while an older engine (likely 5 or so years old minimum) is also a good, reliable engine. It should be relatively powerful and fairly easy to start. (I have 3 of them.)

Good luck and have fun!
Dennis-

GOOD NEWS

I was out at the park yesterday and got the old FP engine running smooth as silk!!! (no wings attached for fear of taking off). It took me a few restarts to find a good mixture setting though. I would get it started, then slowly open and close the throttle but if I did too much in either direction the engine would bog down quite a bit. I finally found a mixture setting that was good for all throttle settings but seemed like it would be a little too lean. So today after reading the last post on lean settings being bad, I will open it up a bit more and run it again. The mixture needle os so close to the prop on the FP engine that I don't want to loose a finger after it's started!!!

All you need is a comformation slip from the ama web site to fly at santioned fields.