I read through the flight manual that tdwise posted, and it was very informative. As a couple of you mentioned, it confirms that the slats are deployed automatically to protect the engine from ingesting 'dirty' air as a result of stall on the inboard section. It also says that the system is programmed to deploy the slats in a 'fail safe' mode if the automatic system is damaged, so that the engine is still protected. It points out that if this happens, drag will go up.

czonio, whether the complexity is justified or not, I disagree that the slats would have no effect on a .25 sized model. There is nothing I know of about scale effects that would necessarily make slats ineffective.

banktoturn