Hi Ryan. You covered most everything that requires checking and rechecking prior the first fight. or maiden. Except this one most critical of all preflight checks. That would be a "range" check. Virtually no one, that I have observed performs a range check. I do it on every first flight of the day. I also wipe out the controls as I taxi onto the runway. This is my last chance to see if the controls are moving in the correct direction. Oh. I forgot. The gyro. Can be confusing. The gyro MUST correct the flight controls in the correct direction. If you have time and recognize this during the flight, you have very little time to turn the gyro "off". Doesn't always work depending on how much altitude you have. Check and recheck the controls on "Every" flight. Don't forget to install a freshly charged battery.
That is exactly what happened on my first flight , it was a cox 049 powered Wonderer , it went straight up and then straight down 😂 I almost got nailed , I was used to flying control line at the time 😮 I never gave up. I decided to get a electric Mabuchi 550 powered glider and join a club , they helped me a lot so now I've been at it now for 35 plus years .
What I’ve seen that is pretty common is during a turn, left turn for example, the learner banks to far left and either loses orientation and continues banking left till it spirals and crashes, or over reacts to the to far left bank and loses it that way. Pretty easy for me to catch with buddy box, but
first a dam jet to explain cg. then a dam bi-plane to explain loss of power. bleh 1300 these days a lot of people skip GLIDERS. consequently, those pilots don't understand (throttle-off) gliding of a powered model.
It’s not so difficult to fly an RC plane only on ailerons and stabilizer. Even possible on ailerons or rudder without stabilizer with only engine throttle. If well balanced, of course
