Jammer and Wings, thanks for the advice. I know that people have said that some of the sim-planes in RF fly fairly realistically (I found this to be true of the trainer) but that others are way off, for example, if I thought flying a turbine F-4 was THAT easy I'd buy one tomorrow).

I'll pick up one of those GP balancers (or trying hanging it from a wire) and see if I get the same result as with the two methods I've used so far, e.g. on fingertips both inverted and upright and balanced on a crude cardboard box with cutouts. BTW, I am using the dowl connectors that came with the kit just because alternatives were not readily available in my corner of Japan. That could have added to the tail weight (compared with you guys that replaced them).