A lot of good ideas thrown around, but I must comment on a couple.

(quote) For a stable airplane the center of lift, or more precisely the Neutral Point, is located at some place forward of the CG. It is indeed a function of the wing, body, tail, etc aerodynamics.

This in not correct! The center of lift must be behind the center of gravity.


(quote) Upwards pitch during flight comes from the fact that the CG is placed slightly back because of the stabilizer, which produces enough lift to prevent the plane from pointing straight up.

The horizontal stabilizer acts opposite the wing. With the c of l behind the cg the wing will lift and attempt to rotate around the cg (which is in from of the c of l) therefore w/o any counteraction would cause the trailing edge to pitch up. The Horizontal stabilizer counteracts this by acting in the opposite direction therefore “stabilizing” the airframe. It is a beautiful balancing act!!