Heh, yeah you seem to have guessed right .
Whilst I have researched other designs, to see what people have done to get what abilities in their aircraft, I am not planning on butchering the other designs, into one or something. That would be a Frankenstein airplane, and I hope to achieve a plane that is more or less unique. Whilst this is probably impossible, given the sheer range of designs made already, but I do want to try.
I am designing this aircraft around an engine I was given. It is a 50 year old antique diesel with no throttle, so I am already pressured into certain desgn aspects (straight wings for control on a glide approach since i will have to axe power for landing etc), so am already limited in the direction it takes me. I do however wish to do all the calculations, work out all the proportions myself. And the designing too, I'm really looking foreward to that.

I plan to study Aerospace Engineering at university next year, so this is basically a vehicle for me getting a hold on the principles early. If it dosent fly for whatever reason, I guess I will have to tweak it and try again. I am teaching myself rudimentary AutoCAD skills to do the design work too. The point is I hope to learn throught this project, and having the working flying model of my own creation that I have wanted to make for years at the end is just an awesome bonus.

So any help anyone can offer me as to the features and how they affect the aircraft, how to calculate the best proportions for my specification, anything at all, I would be more than happy to learn from your (much vaster than mine) experience. I also plan to put up regular updates of my progress so the experts here can tell me off when I accidentally design in thirty tail fins or set the wing loading to 1 tonne/square cm or something equally rediculous [X(]

Thanks for everyones help so far, especially you darock


EDIT: and sorry for any typos that I diddnt pick up on, I think someone who knows more than their fare share about computers has messed with the keyboard functions as every time I type "y" i get "t" amongst other things.