Well, after an annoying soldering job, the SHP is very nearly ready for a maiden flight. The speed control I'm using (a Castle Creations TB-54) had apparently been used, even though I bought it as new. Someone had apparently pulled the red wire out of the connector to the RX previously (which disables the built-in BEC - a normal thing to do), and then re-inserted it. Badly. So, when all 4 servos were asked to deflect to full, not enough current was able to be delivered and the servos would all twitch and the RX would brown-out. Not good. Had that happened in flight, I'd be out a plane. Sooooo, desolder the Deans connector, and solder in an external BEC. Pain in the butt. But, it's done now and all works fine.

The only thing really left to deal with is some control slop in the rudder and one of the ailerons. Not sure how I'll fix it, but I'm sure someone from RCGroups will have ideas.

Then, the bird can fly! That is, once the wind goes away. We've had 15-20 mph winds for the last 3-4 days. And not just steady winds -- it's gusting randomly from all directions. Bad for any flight, triply bad for a maiden. Oh well. Save the plane, be patient!

But I don't want to be! I want to fly this bird...badly.

My new transmitter, a JR 9303 will be here Wednesday. I got a fantastic deal from an RCG'er so I went for it. This is likely the last new transmitter I'll ever need. I'm pretty excited to get it -- the feel of the controls is considerably better than my current TX, plus the 9303 is 9 channels vs. 7 and the programming is a lot nicer.