Grandpa today gave me almost two heart attacks.  One with the P-47, and one with my profile.  Here's the P-47 story.

When grandpa took off the starter for the thunderbolt, and the motor richened up, which now I know it is a bad plug after reading Randy's engine running tips numerous times.  I was going to tell him that when he landed to change plugs.  Well all of a sudden the motor was richer inverted than upright, which I can now attribute to a bad plug (thanks Randy).  He got to the square 8 and was stretching it out as I've been telling him, and then going inverted for the last outside square, on the way down, the motor quit, just flamed out.  He ran towards the plane to try to get it into the weeds.  Well he didn't make it, so he just going to land inverted on the grass, and then I yelled at him to watch the boulder by the circle, he pulled up or down to go up to avoid it.  He cleared the rock, the plane stalled, and started heading down.  All in all the plane is fine, but the 3 blade bolly that was on it, isn't ok anymore, broken blade won't help the motor run much 

near heart attack number two:  I let grandpa fly my profile so he has something to fly.  We are still testing out a plastic tank on it to try and get the motor run right.  We moved the tank too much and was leaner inverted.  He was doing outside loops when the motor slowed down and flamed out, because it was too lean.  Well the plane is perfectly fine and just moved the tank and everything was better.

So that was a summary of our day.  Wait a second I didn't even mention me.  I didn't do anything exciting except for the fact I almost ran out of fuel on the four-leaf, out of the three patterns I did today.

Lol...Matt...I can relate.   I went to Brodak in 2007...first serious contest ever for me...I own one plane...My ARF Smoothie with about 100 flights on it with the box stock Fox.   Flying my first practice flight on Tuesday and of course there are hundreds of people around...some watching...of course when you are a rookie it
feels like they are all watching you.  Well....never a bad burp from this engine so
what happens???   Yep I start inverted and it just quits...dead.  So I glide around (center circle) inverted and manage a gentle landing...nothing broke...omg a miracle!

Check it all over and change the plug and can't find any obvious problems so lets
try again...it quits again...and again I manage to land and zero damage...I am a
little embarrassed but applause breaks out when the plane stops safely...geez
maybe I should pack it up and just watch...later I swapped out all the plumbing
on the tank and problem goes away...and I manage a first place in beginner classic.

Smoothie is now retired...but still whole somehow...lol.  I should mention that despite
trying to film what's going on...Windy U stops what he is doing and comes over to help me figure out whats going on...What more can a rookie ask for?