Today I finally got the guts to fly the skybolt. I built it 2 years ago and it just sat in the hanger. I decided to go for it.

I started it up and took off in a cross wind. I thought I used elevator to get it off until I realized it was still climbing with no input. I tried to trim it and it got about 100 feet so I decided to let the engine idle and It flew strait. gave it more power and it started to climb again.

If it rises from thrust do I add down thrust or upthrust? In the plans it told me to have +1 degree and I really didn't think it was right so I made it level.

I have NEVER heard of putting upthrust in a motor.
For starters, put in a degree of down-thrust.
Also check wings and stab incidences.
Most bipes like Zero stab and bottom wing, one degree of negative in the top wing...croz

Check the aileron neutral position. They may be drooping. Maybe not visibly, but aerodynamically. This is assuming incident and thrust are per plans. Even an airplane that was built with slightly incorrect incident can be favorably trimmed out with the aileron's neutral position without changing engine thrust angles or complicated incident rebuilding. Bring each aileron up 1/2 clevis turn, fly, repeat until your airplane can be flown through out it's power range without pitch trim changes. I will also add that in my experiences with helping trim airplanes, aileron neutral position has been the most often overlooked issue, and also when it comes to pitch trim problems, the #1 cause of it (when CG is correct). Very often, ailerons are rigged for neutral so that they "look right" with the downward slope of the top of the wing...with little attention being paid to how they line up with the bottom of the wing, and are more than likely drooping slightly. This results in the ailerons acting like flaps...giving the different pitch trim settings with different power settings.

Thats what I thought more down thrust. I had the same problem in my trainer and my teacher corected it by tilting the engine down. This time some "professionals" said that I should stick with the plans and add upthust.

I am also pretty sure it is not the aielerons because when the engine was cut off the plane flew good. When I gave it power it climbed again.

That is exactly what will happen if you have some "flap" set into your ailerons. Yes, downthrust will correct it also.

Another thing is that the flaps make it slow down. I feel like it wasn't slowing down fast enough, but I did want to get it down quick before anything happened. Also wouldn't the flaps make it go down instead of up.

I will have to see if that is it as well.

And keep the suggestions comming. I can never have too many.

Ya know something? Most full sized planes react to extra power by climbing also. It's the standard trim setup for full sized stuff and many, many models.

But yeah, you can add some downthrust to kill the climb and turn the excess power into speed rather than altitude.

The problem is that it is tail heavy. 2 inches back to the minimal balancing point. I didn't think it was a problem like this.

Since the tail would go back, when I added full power it raised. I did fly it with no power and I thought it was fine, but maybe I added the elevator in. Poeple who actually saw it today said I was probably lucky to even land it. I really didn't even think it flew that bad myself. I will balance it and fly again.

I will say one thing. A tail heavy skybolt does easy harrier stunt.

Reading these replies on down-thrust or up-thrust is very interesting. My reply here may solve some problems or may just start another line of discussion.
For a long time I was confused about the nose-up, climbing problem when you add power. In several instances I almost lost control of several airplanes that were on their maiden flight due to the nose coming up and getting into a near stall conditon. The stall condition is caused by the angle-of-attack of the wing relative to the airflow being too great thus causing the upper side of the wing to lose lift due to turbulence over the wing instead of a smooth airflow.
Anyway, getting back to the problem. I corrected the problem by adding "up-thrust" to the engine.
Think about it, the engine thrust wants to pull the airplane in a straight line in line with the thrust line.
In the case of down-thrust it wants to pull the airplane in a direction opposite from the angle of incidence of the wing thus increasing the angle of attack of the wing.
I know this goes against the grain of what some of the other repliers have written here but it did work for me.
There other considerations to the nose up problem too including aileron drooping, horizontal stab angle, wing angle and of course proper balance.

You have obviously never had a model with a pylon-mounted engine

britbrat
Glad to hear from you. A very experienced modeler told me that amphibian type airplanes that have the motor located above the wing require as much as 8 deg. upthrust. This would seem logical due to all of the drag that hangs below the engine and must be counteracted. I have not personally had experience with this type of airplane.
In my comments I did not necessarily mean that the motor is set at an up angle from the line of thrust. I merely reduced the amount of downthrust built into the airplane. Two of these experiences were with a SIG 4-star 60 that nosed up violently on its maiden flight and I was barely able to control it to land it. Reducing the built-in downthrust cured this problem and the model performed very well until its recent demise due to a low battery. The other experience I had was with an LT40, a high-wing airplane. Reducing the downthrust also cured its problems and I now fly the engine with an OS .61 FX which is more power than the model originally was designed for. The LT40 performs very well with these adjustments.
Glad to hear of any comments, negative or positive about my opinions.

Planes climb with power.
Get some more flight time on it before you change anything.

Upthrust or downthrust are used to reduce or eliminate pitch change with power change. On a typical airplane with the engine mounted in the nose, downthrust is typically used to counteract pitch-up with throttle-up. A wing mounted to the fuselage with a high angle of incidence in relation to the aircraft's centerline and stabilizer incidence can cause a major pitch-up as the aircraft increases speed. Adding downthrust counteracts that tendency, and vice-versa.

Typically, older models, originally designed for much lower power than we now use, and possibly designed for rudder-only, had a setup that made the model tend to climb. You adjusted the rate of climb by adjusting the wing/elevator incidence angles along with the thrust line. You moderated altitude gain by turning. Elevator control, if you had it, was modest, and allowed barely enough control to round out a descent to landing.

Downthrust doesn't pull the airplane down and "increase" the angle of the relative wind to the wing. Downthrust causes a nose-down pitching force that counteracts the pitch-up tendency of the wing/stab incidence relationship. If adding upthrust moderated a model's behavior with power change, then other issues were involved.

Good points Bax,
I would add something concerning upthrust.

As previously said, up and down thrust is used to avoid any pitch changes with throttle changes. They are dependent on airframe shape and drag distribution it creates around vertical CG: in trainer planes, wings are over the CG (see it from the side), so as speed increase there is a pitch moment towards the wing, since it is generating more lift but also more drag. In amphibian planes both high mounted engine and high drag made by fat "gears" call for the need of upthrust.

In my depron aerobatic plane, similar to a katana, I had to add some upthrust. When I watched the plane from the side, I was surprised how much upthrust to have a neutral behaviour. Later I discovered that it seemed that upthrust was in place, instead the motor was aligned with stab (and wing): it was the fuselage that gave the wrong impression.

This is to say: add down or up thrust if needed to have a neutral airplane with respect to throttle changes. And remember to watch engine incidence with respect to stab and not with respect to fuselage nose...