Mine flies great, the only issue is a sensitive tail, it doesn't take much surface movement to pitch or turn it. Part of that on my model comes from my increasing the H tail surface area and elevator area to make it more scale. But with a lot of expo, it's almost as tame as a trainer. I have an .80 Saito up front, so no lack of power.

One reason BUSA is vague on the prop hub to firewall distance is that the model will have a longer nose than the fullscale did, no matter which engine you use, so a specific distance doesn't really matter. The fullscale also had a dish-shaped spinner that almost occluded the area between prop hub and cowl. I've been told that the Albatross spinner from Arizona Models is a close fit for the BUSA Bristol.

I just used an acorn style prop nut, since the front of the plane is off scale anyway. I love my Bristol, a fun plane to fly, and it's pretty fast with the Saito and a 14-6 scimitar prop. Another thing, the size wheels called for in the manual is too small, use the next size up Williams Bros. wheels