Looked around for answer, didn't find it.

Where does one put the center of gravity on a carrier plane?  When you replace the FP 20 on a well-balanced Ringmaster with an FP 40, the center of gravity moves to about 1/2" behind the leading edge -- that seems excessively far forward to me.

(I could move the engine back, and may do so in the long run -- for now I'm just going to pile lead in the tail.)

My goal at this contest is to not crash, so I may leave the CG at the "best stunt" position -- or not, we'll see.  My first contest is next weekend, so I'm not expecting to win big.

     If you leave the balance point 1/2" behind the leading edge I wish you luck on not crashing on the deck when you attempt a landing. With the CG at that position the plane will always come down nose first. Remember the hook is not on the nose, its at the tail end of the plane so that end of the plane needs to be close to the deck "not" the front end.
     When the plane is balanced correctly, this is how it is flown. Take off, from the deck. The engine is run up to full power (no a stunt run), lean it out till it starts to sag then turn needle back till it is at maximum RPM, signal for take off. From the deck you should be able to use neutral elevator and the plane should fly itself off, any altitude over 8 feet is cutting your HS score, now hold the handle "against" your mid section and get very slightly ahead of the plane and cruse as smoothly as you can for 7 laps. Now start throttling back while trying to keep the plane level at or below 8 feet. Just putt around while very slowly reducing throttle while slowing down and as this happens you will see the tail going down a little bit which is good. When you think you cant go any slower comfortably then signal for LS and fly 7 laps. Now, if everything is going pretty good on the 7th lap signal for your landing as you complete that 7th lap (read) the rules on when you should raise your hand to signal for landing. So now your flying slowly with the tail slightly lowered and as you come back to the deck at close to 5 feet above ground all you do is cut the throttle and the plane will land around 10 feet after the throttle was closed. Bingo, perfect flight (in your wildest dreams).
     Now a word about the 3A OS carb settings. "I" found that if I leaned the engine out as above and then throttled it back to idle and then adjusted the air bleed to lean the idle out to, I got the best engine run at both HS and LS. If the LS setting is the least bit rich I found that my throttle response was very slow and I wasn't able to add power when the plane settles.
     Now this may sound like a lot of crap to go through but while your doing this your learning all there is to carrier and I'm talking about maybe 5 flight to get the idea and then a little practice (5 more on another day?) and your an ace. Maybe at your first meet go real slow and gently, perhaps even backing up and not landing on the deck after the HS/LS.  Eric

Well, I was out giving it the maiden flights today (and practicing without a deck).  I was aiming to put it down on the line between my toolbox and me, and did so three times out of my four flights.

And fly it pretty slow.  Ringmasters stall when you get them too slow, and drop two or three feet before you can catch them.

Monday or Tuesday I'll be weeping, because the thing came to me with a twin-needle carburetor that's just absolutely perfectly adjusted.  It's as sweet as can be -- and I'll have to rip it off and put on an air-bleed, then get it adjusted before the contest.