again in respect to the Zero post , and trying to keep on subject , unfortunitly for me I own 9 CMP planes lol . Now when so many were bashing them verbally,I was buying and flying becuase small things like control horns and lack of scale (for me ) could easily be tweeked , fixed and made to my own taiste.
I personally dont want a plane that flys scale, I want a plane that flys well . If my plane flys well with no bad habbits I can easily make it fly scale to most with a decerning eye.
I have been to more warbird meets then I wish to count and I can tell you I have seen some heavy birds loaded way beyond the norm of skill needed to fly them. So you know wha happens , the take offs are less then scale 75% of the time as well as the landings . Once in the air , well that is a differant matter but in many cases airspeed is beyond what scale would be in normal circumstances.
I never quite get this quote correct , but Dave Platt said something like "its better to have your model look correct then be correct" . At times very good designer, engineer planes in the following manner,light wing loading, great airfoils , excellant ground handeling, and sound structures. I found in my earlier years before I took off to raise my family,that I built everything to scale. (in reality standoff scale) . What I found was I was compromising performance in return for scale equity. You pay for this in the stress level at the field (at leaste for me) . So then when I returned to the hobby , I learned a valuable lession with my Hanger 9 Corsair bash. I added a Zolner interior,scale details such as panel lines and retracts ect ,weathering ,pilot sliding canopy ect . However the plane was still very light and incredible joy to fly. This changed my direction and planning from that point on .Because in the air the Hanger 9 corsair flew very scale , it was an easy beutiful plane to fly and with the exception of the scale buffs, the flat stablelizer was never a negative issue when you would see and feel this plane fly .

Again , I think the weight and feel comes down to your own choice of preferance . I think at time the subject is confused because many experienced warbird guys will say "love the bigger planes they fly so well" , you never really hear them say "love the bigger heavier birds" because weight was always a aspect of "results" typically never of "intent".
I have used this example so many times
Take the
RedBox P40 -gem to fly
Gold Edition (sorry guys ) difficult and real warbird with some design errors
Hanger 9 P40 - creampuff
New P40 ARF - total gem
73"CMP P40 -total gem
so while they all have the p40 name , and to the typical bystander there all the same plane , the differance is weight ,wingloading and washout .
Enjoy the hobby, no right or wrong answer , just opinion but I will close with saying my hanger has been very healthy and happy with light wingloading