Hmmmm, is it not true that when you trim down and leave it there that you lose that much upward travel ? Of course you will not have as much up throw in your elevator as you had with the trim neutral.

Now, combine this with flaps deployed which make the horizontal stab work harder (including the elevator) to keep the nose up. Yes that's right, nose up, the ballooning you get when the flaps are deployed is the initial increase in lift at a higher airspeed. As that speed bleeds off and you reduce throttle, the flap drag increases.

The change in the airfoil shape from the flaps causes the plane to take a nose down attitude. Now, since it wants to fly nose down at a lower angle of attack, you compensate with more elevator to keep it up. As you come into land you will be using more elevator and as speed bleeds further, you will come in with more elevator to flare. If you do not have enough elevator travel you will not be able to pull the nose up fully to flare. A nose heavy plane will exagerate this.

Now, the other thing is what the other guys are saying, go for wheel landings. You may also be experiencing elevator blanking. If all seems to be going fine with the landing, airspeed is right, glide slope correct, just about the time you go to flare, the elevator seems to just disappear ? That is elevator blanking and you end up with a hard nose drop. In this case you need more speed and a little less flap. The guys are right about wheel landings, forget the three pointers, leave that to the 3D and cub guys.

The nose down trim sounds more like incidence or thrust than balance, especially when you say that the plane is sluggish. I had a Hanger 9 60 size with an os120 that flew like this, I had it down to five clicks of trim change between full throttle and landing. I think H9 set the incidence to allow the plane to fly well with a poverty 60, but when you put bigger power in it the higher speeds would make it climb.

S1