[OnTheEdge]

First off, sorry to hear about the losses of your first two planes. I've been flying for many, many years and I'm sorry to say you've been bitten by the RC bug. Welcome to all the fun. With the bug bite, however, comes the desire to jump into newer, more advanced planes before we are ready. While you felt comfotable flying your new planes, my advise is to stick with your trainer till you are ready (really ready) to move on. Just because one can take off and land without breaking the prop and flying some aerobatic maneuvers doesn't mean we have learned all it takes to "move on" to your next plane.

While you will get many differing opinions on this, in my opinion, jumping into other planes too quickly is one of the biggest mistakes I see new folks in this hobby do.
Don't get me wrong, you are very much like thousands of others that advance too quickly. Hopefully others may learn and thankfully no one was hurt. As you mentioned, when your motor died, you didn't know what to do. That is exactly why we need to get more stick time with our trainers. Saving a plane should come naturally, you shouldn't have to think about what to do to save it. Not just for the ability to keep from crashing your plane, but to keep from hurting someone.

I'm sure we all can think of someone who learned to fly these things planes real quick and without incident. But I'd bet a week's salary that for every quick learner, there are 50 of those who have to go through the learning curve (and many of those leaving the hobby before accomplishing the learning curve). As I'm typing this, I'm visualizing all the folks who have come and gone at our club field.

My advise (take it for what it's worth) is to set your 50cc plane aside for now (don't even repair it at this time). Send your radio in to find out if it had anything to do with the demise of your first two planes. Buy another H9 P51 trainer and fly the crap our of it. Don't move on to your next plane until you can get it in the most unforgiving situations, and save it without even thinking about having to save it. Also, don't forget about the rudder, it's without a doubt one of the most important sticks in the event of a deadstick.

Just my two cents..........Mark