ORIGINAL: JeffH
I just read that on another thread that the model is designed with positive two degrees in the wing, negative two in the the stab with four degrees of downthrust in the motor. Is it me, or does these numbers seem a bit odd? ... This seems to me as the throttle is reduced, the downthrust quits pulling the plane back level and all sorts of bad stuff will start happening.
This is not as odd as you might think. Models are set up this way for stability. It started with free flight models with no real-time input from the "pilot." Then the early RC models were little more than free flights with some corrections given by the pilot. The models need to be very stable, as a result.
RC trainers were always (until recently, aparently) set up this way. As throttle is reduced, the model will slow down and self-right. This (excessive) pitch stability is undesireable in a lot of RC situations, which is why you now see more 0-0-0 setups.
have fun,
-David