Ok, so guess what... its still flying!!! I have about 10 or so more battery flights into the FT Old Fogey. I would agree with you rfd, the old Fogey has been and continues to be the key.
Here are a few more things I have done and learned from this process...
When I started I wanted to do everything at once, set up everything at once and have everything at once 100% correct.... but what I soon learned was there is way too much for 1 person who is doing this by themselves with FT help to do at once so don't do it all at once. Do a few things at a time, absorb, then do more... hell its only a few dollars of foam in the air, if I crash it I know I can repair, or rebuild it.
I found when I was flying that I was having problems telling if my plane was coming or going, was it turning towards or away from me because it was all white so being X-Mas at the time I was dealing with this I decided to paint it Xmas colors. I was smart enough to paint the old wings from my crashed sparrows first and learnt that paint will cause white foam board to bubble, and will cause it to warp if put on to heavy.
I remember listening to or hearing a certain type of spray paint was pretty good to use, but i guess the stuff in my garage was not good for the foam board I ended up doing two very light coats of spray paint on it and it took some color ok and did not warp or delaminate. I painted the bottom of the wings and plane black, the top of the wings and rear stabilizer green, front of the plane red, and the back part and tail section silver. Now I can see if the wings are level, which side if dropping down towards me or away from me and if I am coming towards me or away from me.
I got out Xmas day with my Step-Son and Son in Law and flew it a bit with them, they were pretty surprised and thought it was cool. Trying to convince them to get into it but not sure if that will happen, but they may come out with me a few times. That day I learned how to crash it into a tree and the front cowling took some damage but a little pinching with the fingers straitened it out.
I also wanted to try to figure out how to set my dual rates and expo at this time and my radio. So jumped back to Youtube, and within a few hours I had 3 rates ( High/Med/Low) and expo settings put into my radio on toggle G.
• 65% Dual Rate and 15% Expo
• 80% Dual Rate and 20% Expo
• 100% Dual Rate and 30% Exp
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I have no idea if this is a correct setting or not, but is smoothed out my flying and still allowed for the plane to work and take off in all 3 settings. If anybody wants to comment constructively and explain if what I did here is incorrect and why and what I should do properly please feel free 
A few flight after that over the next few days it went well, I am still on my first prop and the prop saver has been just that, a prop saver. It allows the prop to get out of the way when I land and if the prop is in a vertical position, and if I hit something it just bends back. I ordered a few more batteries and found a great deal on airgun Lipo's. They had slightly more storage and were 2s, reading the specs they could handle the discharge rate so I grabbed them. I also grabbed 4 - 3S 1350mah Lipo's.
What did I learn from the air gun Lipo's? They are light, slender and work well, I got more flight time out of them then my current batteries and will have to see about their longevity. What did I learn about the 3S 1350mah Lipo's? Well..... It’s always good to ground test your linkages and do a proper run up of your prop...... which I actually did do. What I found out was that the rubber O-rings on the prop saver are great for 2S batteries, but when using the 3S, the prop leaves the plane behind and tries to fly off on its own.
So I was smart enough when I ordered all my parts to order extra O-rings for the prop saver and with my big mitts, they are hard to put on, but worked just well. What else I learned was this Old-Fogey comes to life when you give it an extra 3300 rpm or so on the prop, it acts as if its found the good hooch behind the straw bales in the barn, and that drinking the good stuff, you end up with a much more exciting Old Fogey.
The Fogey leaped to life, climbed vertical and ended up with a bunch of new cool characteristics. I also learned I could fly that, do loops without a run up, go vert, dive, and just have a general good time. I also learned it was time to figure out how to use the Lipo battery alarms, as when I tested the depleted battery after I was finished my fun it had only 8% left in the tank, so this has now been set to 3.6 volts as the alarm.
• I read somewhere if I use this that at about 3.3 volts the Voltage alarm will override my speed control and shut down my prop, but allow my BEC to continue working. Is this correct, does it actually do this? If so cool, see how I react to it the first time it happens.
• Is it a hard cut off, or if it’s because I am doing full draw at max speed, will it re-engage if I use a lower throttle and let me bring it in safely. I guess a new learning is coming one way or the other.
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So what is completed so far, what have I started to commit to memory:
• How to build a foam airplane
• Use intelligent charge controllers
• How to set the electronics up and bind with radio
• Solder XT 60 connection to batteries and RC
• How to do the initial setup and verify flight surfaces are level
• Trim aircraft…. ( still work in process )
• Launch and fly it, bring it back in one piece, repeatability
• Learn character difference between 2 and 3 s batteries
• Set up High/Low rates and expo
• Set voltage alarms for Lipo’s
Still to learn
• Lots lol, but next step is to figure out Hit Film Express so I can post some video and pics to share with you all.
• Figure out next foamy to build, any suggestions from the crowd of experienced pilots? Not big on sparrow or tiny trainer as been there, crashed them, destroyed them already…..
• Build said plane and continue my journey on learning this new craft.
Enough rambling for now, thanks all for the help and insite, thanks FT for making this possible and accessible for everybody, how about a FT South someday so I can travel north of my border and visit and see what it’s all about.
-NV