Rat1

Main thing is to find out what the center of gravity should be. I am not sure right at the moment but I think it is about the center of the finger holds. This is were the plane should balance. Now place you electronics and battery so that the plane balances at this point.

If you are using the ParkZone motor mount then you may be fine but do a search for Cadetman. He knows what thrust angle should be used when building your own. I know that if you put in too much down thrust that the plane will nose up when you add more power during flight. I think the thrust line should follow a center line right to the nose of the plane. So if you were to run a strinf in a straight line from the motor shaft to the front of the plane it would intersect with the tip of the nose.

Keep the build as light as possible but you need to apply packing tape in a square section on top of the fuse and below the fuse to reinforce were the motor mount is. Go about 6 inches wide and extend the tape about 3 1/2 inches from the rear of the fuse. I also run a piece of packing tape on the bottom of the fuse that goes from just behind the nose cone to the back edge and I add one peice of tape along each side of the electronics bay area that goes fromt he front edge to the simulated air intakes as this is were the fuse will break off in a crash. Most common peices to break off are the front of the fuse in a section from just behind the nose cone to about 3 1/2 inchs to 4 inches back. This will break off in one big section. Also the section were the motor is mounted has been known to break off in a crash. Do not fasten the nose cone on permenently with packing tape, Use some double stick tape or something that will allow the nose cone to come off in a crash as this will save some of the damage to the main fuselage. The factory Strykers came with an added weight in the nose cone also but if you mount the electronics carefully you will not need to add this. All they did was push a screw into the bottom of the nose cone and they covered it up with a Quality Control sticker.
I only used tape on the top of the elevons to hing them but some use tape on the top and bottom. I did not liek it because I felt it made the hing joint too stiff thus taking more power for the servos to move the elevons. The stock decal sheet is also designed to reinforce the wings along the leading edge so you may want to place some tape along the leading edge of each wing. There is also some tape along the bottom that went over the carbon fiber rods.

So far the best paint I have found that will not eat the foam is Model Master Custom enamel spray paint which is manufactured and distributed by Testors.

Not sure what color you are going to use but the closest thing to the factory colors I could find were Flat black, Afrika Mustard, Gunship Grey and Panzer Grey. All of these are the Model Master spray paint.