Tattoo & Cajun,

There certainly can be problems with horizontal stabilizers being 'blanketed', but there are plenty of planes with stabilizers in various positions, some closely coupled, that work fine. Off the top of my head, I'd make two observations: 1) you want elevator authority for pitch in both directions, so you probably want the horizontal stabilizer near the thrust line, rather than much above or below 2) since you fly at fairly high speed and high throttle (thrust), you probably get pretty good airflow over your tailfeathers, even if their location is not optimal. Incidentally, I would say that most planes, combat or not, have the horizontal stabilizers pretty close to the same plane as the wing. Pathological situations, like blanketing of the tail, are not always real obvious in advance, even when professionals are doing the designing. When they show up, they get fixed. You don't seem to be seeing a problem, and I wouldn't really have expected one from looking at your plane, notwithstanding the warnings from the guys at your field. Time to go flyin'.

It's not really correct to say that the 'pure aerodynamic theory' is not absolute. What is more accurate is to say that it can't be applied too broadly. For example, if one were to infer that the 'theory people' were saying that sharp leading edges are bad, or don't work, that would be an overly broad interpretation, and would be faulty. The same would go for stabilizer placement. Theory is like any other tool: you should use it where it works, and not where it doesn't. Unfortunately, erroneous conventional wisdom can come to be known as 'theory' ( like flat-bottom wings being more stable than symmetric ones, or blunt trailing edges preventing flutter ), and incorrect decisions can be made. You shouldn't blame 'theory' for that.

Just my two cents.

banktoturn