HL, some planes will take off by them selves when they have gained enough runway speed. If your plane will do that then don't bother adding in elevator until the plane is higher up. You can test this if you have a good sized runway(500 feet or more). Start your takeoff at the very end of the runway. Throttle up to full and steer it down the runway. If the plane hasen't left the ground on its own by the middle of the runway, then its time to start adding up elevator to take off. Planes with a short fuselage, say 36" to 40" will respond much quicker to the elevator than longer planes with say a 50" fuselage. In this case about all you can do is get more experience so that you learn how to have a lighter touch on the elevator. If the cg is a touch on the tail heavy side, then this will also make the elevator appear to be too sensitive. I built some spads as an experiment. I made the elevators quite large and gave them 1 1/2" throws. The takeoffs never bothered me and I could land really slow and flair the plane nicely. I went back to balsa though, for me its easier to make planes look good. [8D]