The recommended range as I recall was way nose heavy. Like most planes if you balance on the wing spar or a tad forward usually you will be fine. Use your best judgement and bring some stick on lead to add to the tail on your first flights. It won't take much. Once you find the sweat spot then check where you cg is, pull the lead off and move the battery around until it balances without the lead. You will not want a lot of elevator as I found with this plane it will drop out without notice. Meaning you will start pulling back on the elevator to slow it down to fight the nose heavy and it will start slowing and then just loose all lift and pancake the landing. You will need to bring it in with about 1/5 throttle. Don't drop it to idle and flare or you will be in trouble. Its ok to drop to idle to slow it down on approach but as you are lining up and about 10ft up bring up the throttle a little and slowly pull back but not to a full flare. Let it sink in. If your flying off of grass make sure its short grass or go to bigger wheels or you'll flip over regaurdless. On pavement just be prepared for a 50-100ft roll out and easy on the rudder or it will whip around and dig a wing tip in. Also make sure the wheels roll well on both sides otherwise it will pull you to that side and be a pain. Balance the plane laterally too as mine did have a heavier side and I had to bury a little lead in one wing tip. You can just have someone hold the spinner and put a finger under the tail in the center and lift. Its crude but will give you a rough idea. As far as the far as the throws I would look online at similiar planes by Wattage or Herr and see what their throws are. This plane is just a tad larger than speed 400 size planes. The elevator is pretty sensitive on this plane and will not need much throw. I never liked how the inside of the elevator had more control surface area than the outside. I almost wonder if it would have been more stable if the elevator was the straight across type. I am guessing the throw will probably be ok at about 7-10mm. I don't remember what the stock throw was.