A maiden flight at last!

I finally got back to the RC field this Tuesday! I brought a new plane for its maiden flight. I've been working on this plane, a Great Planes Rapture 40, for at least 2 months to get it flying. I've had so much going on these last few months i didn't consistently work on it until the last couple weeks. I had a ton of trouble mounting the engine, and then once I had that done, I had to figure out how to hook it up to the receiver so it would open and close the throttle correctly. I finally got it ready the Monday night before, and started it charging for the next day.

I was very excited, and nervous, hoping I didn't do too bad a job getting it ready to fly that morning. I got there and found my instructor, Bob, and started getting ready, eying the crosswind and the fact that someone else was flying on my frequency, so I would have to wait to fly. Plus I only had fuel for one flight. Thankfully my dad hadn't gone past the hobby shop yet on the way to the field to see my plane fly. He picked up a jug, and I was set. Meanwhile a bunch of other people were crowding around my airplane, asking all sorts of questions about it.

There was one pilot who brought a FW-190, and was flying it that afternoon, and ended up crashing it. Check out the poor pilot! I think that's his last Spitfire dogfight for a while!

We finally had an opening, and made the leap of faith, my instructor Bob making the maiden flight.
I was pretty nervous until the plane got off the ground in one piece, at which point my adrenaline level went down a little. After all, this was a special airplane, given to me by my friend Dallas, who helped me get started in RC. Bob was doing pretty good, except the controls were in need of changing, with the airplane wanting to fly down and to the left. Bob then landed the airplane so he could adjust it. The next flight was better, except the adjustments making the airplane want to go up, and to the right. He then turned the plane over to me to fly.

The airplane was different, with a heck of a lot more speed! It is fast! I took it up to safe altitude and started some basic aerobatics, testing its capabilities. Now, to me, having crashed my first plane close to field and not high enough, almost hitting a few people, I was cautious with my altitude ( I always have been since that crash!). This one pilot said to me once, that I should fly at least 3 mistakes high. Since my first crash, when I do aerobatics, I fly 10 MISTAKES HIGH. Yet I got a little too comfortable flying it, and almost crashed when I made an error coming out of inverted flight. You always need something like that to keep you humble! All the old men behind me made comments about my near miss. I landed abruptly, after having my engine quit at low altitude. I just barely got onto the field and plowed into the ground nose first (no damage though).
I was done after that. I had had a little too much excitement. Plus Bob needed to go home. So I packed up the plane and went home to prepare for CAP that night. I had a fun day!