Great stuff so far.

Tph1, wing tube location is hit and miss. Honestly you can get in the ball park, but what type of engine you use, the shape of your wing, where you mount your servos, the construction of your tail, all of these things and a thousand more go into it. Then you have to fly the plane and see where it flies the best as far as balance. So on a totally brand new design, I'd say use a similarly configured model as your reference and then go from there.

Remember that moment=weight x distance, so one ounce in the tail will be equivalent to about 3 in the nose, as it affects balance. The balance position of a wing is somewhere between 25% and 33% of the total length of the plane, again using a number of factors that can push it a couple of inches either way. ALSO keep in mind that the further your stab from your cg, the more longitudinal stability you get with a given stab surface area, and the harder it is to snap.

These are VERY general statements, and meant only as a possible place to start and tweak from there.

As for why we constantly "need" new planes, I'm in total agreement. There's not a thing wrong with the one I'm flying now, but I want a new toy, and hope it flies even better. I know some properties I'd like to achieve so I designed them in, and we'll see if it works. Plus I just like doing things different to prove it can be done. In my case, it's a good dose of new style retro construction.

I also noticed Naruke's new 2 meter plane has anhedral stabs like the old Curares/Tipos. I'd love to hear from Dick about that subject, it was all teh rage for a while then *poof*...now Naruke is doing it again. What's the real scoop?

-Mike