great advice! As for the take off, we really needed the pilot to lift it off the ground asap and we still barely made it before reaching the edge of the takeoff box. The pilot was not part of the team last year, we had to borrow him from the airfield, but he said he had over 20 years of experience.

I appreciate the criticism. I believe its the best way to learn when talking to someone with experience. As for explaining why I did what I did, is that the propulsion guy said we will get x thrust so wing guy said we need a wing x feet with a cord of x and stability guy said we needed the tail to be x by x and x feet from the trailing edge of the wing and my structures team ordered a CF beam that was way too strong then they all went away for winter break and didnt comeback to the team until a week before competition. I was left with building everything myself so i made the decision to go as light as possible. I used 1/6in lightply ribs and the lightest balsa i could find for connecting everything together. It came out as a big box but it was still the lightest airplane at the competition. Do you have any blueprints for RC aircraft that you suggest I base the design for this year after? Those would be a HUGE HELP to understand what you mean.