We are in good company. I'm looking at a kit for a 1/2A model that I have as a possible conversion to Speed 400 electric.

What I'm considering is to make it pretty much as per plan but I'm going to go for a fat symetrical airfoil shaped pylon to house a good part of the radio gear and motor batteries.

The CG will be kept the same as per plan and I'll go for a rather narrow 10% wide elevator with limited movement to ensure I don't run into too much elevator sensitivity. The fin and rudder will be split at the 50-50 line for good turn response in the glide.

If you're going gas for a "scale" like vertical pattern you'll want to use dual rates on the fin and rudder and run pretty much the minimum movement during the power pattern. The speed they get in the pattern coupled with all that dihedral makes almost any amount of control input TOOOOOOO much. Actually it may be best to set it up for an unmolested power pattern and then kill the engine with the radio and THEN take over flight control after the roll out. Not many of the free flight models of the Satelite type construction take kindly to power pattern aerobatics so you'll want to beef it up considerably or ensure that it doesn't get too squirlly in the power pattern.

Of course with all the raw power from a speed 400 electric I won't have this problem...

The kit I'm thinking of converting is an Air Express by Phil Hainer. He's a well known local modeler here on the west coast that passed away a couple of years back. He marketed his own hand cut kits for a few years and the Air Express was the NFFS model of the year a while back.

I'd love to see a 40 to 60 sized Rossi on a 1000 with gear. Even the hotshot jet jocks would stop to watch THAT one go up....