Johng and Bmatthews - Your thoughts are quite thought-provoking. My thought process is this - The impact to the hydroplane attitude is most affected by its reaction to the water (because of density) so tuning its water elements is done first in calm air and smooth water. BUT, once it hits a wave or a gust of wind (or even when it turns into the wind - since I race Ovals) - both of which are bad if you have it tuned 'on the edge' THEN my only control is air-related because it is the air that creates the flip. The flips are faster than human reaction time (at least in R/C) so it will have to be automated.

I will do some research on WIG. You are correct in that the hydroplane is required to be water prop driven.

If by "swept canards on the outboard gunwales of the sponsons" you mean something that makes the hydroplane wider, overall, that would violate rules since I am at maximum width. I like the idea of having a manual control to give it a "nose-up" attitude and then lightning-fast gyro-controlled control to override the manual control for a pre-flipping event. I also agree that once the hydroplane gets a nose-up attitude of a few degrees "the battle has probably been lost anyway" since the whole boat transforms into a big wing with an aggressive positive attack angle for the flip.

Thanks to everyone.