I have read through this forum a couple of times with great interest as I built my CMPro Lancair. Now here is my experience and some questions.
I have assembled and flown more than 20 ARFs and bought the Lancair because it was strikingly different in appearance. I have powered it with an ASP 52 4-stroke.
All 3 flights to date have been disastrous; my beautiful plane is now looking rather battle-scarred!

The maiden flight seemed to go OK, just steady flying without any aerobatics, but on slowing and turning downwind in preparation to land saw it “fall out of the sky” from about 30 feet up. There was severe damage to the front end, some damage to the wings and quite a bit of cracking/creasing of the fuselage.. Fortunately I always leave the cowl off for initial flights.

After repair, I asked our club's top pilot to test fly it. And even he had unusual trouble! Firstly it wanted to stay glued to the ground and required heavy use of elevator to achieve a take off. Maybe too much down-thrust?
Secondly, anything but the slightest use of elevator caused the plane to snap roll! The elevator is set at 7mm up, 8mm down – with lots of exponential. COG is slightly ahead of the recommended forward position of 72mm.
The landing was fast but successful.

We moved the COG forward slightly but his second flight exhibited the same behaviours as the first, plus this time the plane attempted to roll on take-off and on landing it crashed the last metre to the ground. More damage!

We notice that the horizontal stab has 4mm of anhedral on each side. Is this normal and/or OK? Or could this be the cause of the snap rolling?

Also, the plane seemed to fly with its tail sitting low even after moving the COG forward slightly.

I note that some in this forum have great success with their Lancairs, yet others seem to have problems (particularly with use of elevator). Why such a vast difference? Is this plane actually an unstable design?

I would appreciate any suggestion/assistance that members can offer – before I commit it to the skies again.

Thanks,
Bill