Original Posted By: "John Dilatush"
All of this extended discussion about the proper way to conduct our firsttest flight has raised a number of points that I do not think are all thatrelevant.Someone on here mentioned "all of those crashes we keep hearing about wherethe owner just goes for it." I don't know about the rest of you, but I havenot heard many such stories, if any. The only example given was of someonewho nearly lost it because he lacked the tailwheel experience. If you arenot experienced enough to fly the airplane in the first place, all of thetaxi-ing in the world won't help you.The example of the F-16 test flight is not relevant because we are not testflying an unproven aircraft that no one has any idea of its flightcharacteristics. The only question is weight and balance, and that shouldbe worked out beforehand. A Piet is not so complex that a crossed wire in a3-inch wiring bundle is going to make the ailerons work opposite.Taking ANY tailwheel airplane and accelerating it to lift the tail, and thenchopping the power and setting the tail back down is begging for trouble,i.e. a groundloop. That is not a natural maneuver, and it is not anythinglike a normal landing. I cringe when I watch people testing their newairplanes running up and down the runway doing this and rearly losingcontrol every time.I have only test flown homebuilts and antique restorations where I wasinvolved with the work, never where someone else built it and asked me tofly (nor do I think I ever would). When I am convinced that I have lookedat every important component and verified that everything is correct, and Ihave had friends who I trust doubly-verify that I have not missed anything,I do "go for it." I only do enough taxi-ing to assure that the brakes workand to become familiar with the way it taxis. I believe that the mostlikely failure on a first flight is an engine failure, and I think these arethe majority of the first-flight accidents you do hear of. For this reason,once on the runway I go for altitude (except a brief pause right aftertakeoff to verify the flight controls work like I expect them to. Withaltitude, everything else can work itself out.I am not advocating haste, or a lack of caution. If something is going tofall off of the airplane, you screwed up in the building process,or at leastthe preflight inspection. If the airplane is well-built, is built to (or inall important areas to) the plans, and has been thoroughly inspected a fewmillion times by you and, hopefully, other knowledgable and trustedindividuals, there is no reason the airplane should not fly safely. Theonly other question is whether you, the pilot, is qualified to fly theplane. If not, the experience needs to be gained in something else, nottaxi-ing your new child.Gene Rambo________________________________________________________________________________