Thanks for the response I will definitely put your advice to good use. I might actually look over the Lockheed/Martin contest to get some ideas as well. I did look at past reports of this competition but the amp restriction went down from 20 to 15 and the teams do not do a very good job justifying how they came up with the combinations. It would have been very convent otherwise.

We have already decided on the tail dragger and big wheels so its big plus to get a confirmation from someone with experience. The high tail wheel, is something we did not think of, and I believe you bring up a good point. I usually aim for practical designs when designing anything so I will make sure I push my team not to do any crazy and not try to "reinvent the wheel". Hopefully with the dihedral and high wing, the plane will be stable enough and our pilot is decent so I hope we would not be needing any plastic bags after test flights.