ORIGINAL: rhklenke

Pete,

The basic answer to your question, is no, they do not fly the same.

In full-scale aircraft, the basic armament configurations are tested on the aircraft in the design phase - either in numerical simulation or in the wind tunnel, or both before being flown on the prototype. Once an aircraft is in production, different weapons configurations that might be used are first be tested by a flight test center before being allowed to be loaded on an aircraft in the field.

The same holds true for models. I haven't flown a whole bunch of different configurations, but the ones I have flown did make a difference in how the aircraft flys, although it wasn't really that much.

I would start at the same CG location with the armament, but you might find that the aircraft is more, or less, stable with the armament and a CG shift might help that - which you can do by adding the weight to the armament so that the CG shifts automatically when adding it or taking it off.

Bob