warbirdflyer, i have built and flown a number of the yellow aircraft p-47's, the last one i had i balanced it with the gear up and it made a whole lot of difference than when i balanced the others with the gear down. The manual says to balance it with the gear up which meant that i used alittle more weight to balance it, which actually took out the tendency of the plane ballooning with the deployment of the flaps for landing.