Here’s the order of preparation prior for a flight. This is the result of the collective experience (sometimes bitter!) of many Carrier pilots.
Several days before an event (or even before a simple practice session), you should inspect your model for wear and tear. Obviously much of this activity, though not all, will not apply to a new model. The life of a carrier model can be quite punishing and damage which goes unchecked often manifests itself later in the most inconvenient way, usually by spoiling a competition flight. Make sure all nuts, bolts and screws are tightened right up and where the threads are metal-to-metal, they have been treated with a thread locking compound such as Loctite. There’s no need to use anything stronger than a standard strength compound. The only exceptions are the cylinder head and crankcase cover bolts on the engine, which don’t normally require such treatment.
Ensure that all of the control system items are soundly fixed to the airframe or to each other, that they work properly without undue friction and that there’s not any excessive slop anywhere. This also includes the more obscure areas such as the horn (is it still firmly fixed to the elevator?), the elevator joiner (any flexibility between individual elevators?) and the elevator hinges (any visible tearing, splitting or parting of company?). Check the leadout cables in particular, replacing even the slightest fray with a complete new component.
Look critically at the airframe, notably at the wing/fuselage and tail/fuselage joints. These are classic sites for gradual fatigue cracking due to abrupt changes in material shape and stiffness which lead to stress concentration. The worst site for a profile-fuselaged Carrier model can often be at the wing leading edge due to the outward flexing of the fuselage under the relatively large weight of the engine. Check also for cracking round the hook pivot reinforcement and if the model is equipped with a hook release, make sure that it works satisfactorily and that all the components appear undamaged.
Test possible cracks anywhere on the model by flexing the airframe in such a way that a crack will open up. If it does, run a knife blade the full crack length to widen it slightly, flex it open again, fill the fracture with the runniest superglue you’ve got and release the airframe so the crack closes up again. If the Cyano is thin enough, capillary attraction will draw it into the very extremities of the crack and the entire fracture will be locked solid. Do this with even the tiniest of cracks – they’re tomorrow’s big ones!
The day before an event, use a previously prepared (and debugged!) comprehensive check list to make sure that nothing gets forgotten. Such a checklist can only be based upon your own experience and tends to grow with time – so start writing it now as it’s not a five minute job! This way, you can arrive at a flying event (reasonably) confident that if your flying is brought to an early end or prevented altogether by some failure, at least it won’t have been due to an avoidable mistake or simply having left a vital part of equipment behind.