I can understand your dilemma. I graduated from Ga. Tech in Aeronautical Engineering more than fifty years ago and had an interesting career in the field with the USA Air Force, a major aircraft manufacturer, and an airline. Along the way I also became a pilot and flight instructor. As a long time model builder I find that the theoretical knowledge is a great help in understanding what effects what and how to make changes that improve things, but when it comes to designing from scratch, I’m stuck with TLAR (that looks about right). When you plan to build a hundred airplanes at thirty million dollars each, you can afford to do a lot of testing and research but for a $150 model, a little educated cut and try will usually produce perfectly acceptable results.