Thanks for the comments, Keith and Jim.
There are several "problems" to solve with the Wart Hog. I think they can be worked out and at least it may be fun, and interesting to try.
Retracts, all being forward of the engines may also help with the balance.
All these"problems", coupled with the downright super cool, nasty, looks combine to make me want to try.
Hi John, The A-10 will definitely be a challenge for any form of a semi-scale stunt ship. We mentioned the engines in the back. With electric fans, at least the batteries can be in the nose to help with the balance. Then, as the batteries run down, the only weight that is lost is the electrons the fans consume. To use engines, to use the fuel tank location to solve the balance problem, this solution would only work at some portion of the flight as the fuel is consumed.
You mentioned that the main LG would at least be forward of the fans. However, the main gear is still located behind the CG. You could have the gear retract forward, but would do very little to help solve the CG issue.
Sorry for sounding so negative. If there is a solution to make the A-10 a viable twin stunt ship with the engines in the back, you will be the one to do it.
When this thread started several years ago, I mentioned I thought there were three twin engine aircraft that would be good candidates for a good looking stunt twin. One was the deHavilland Hornet. There is a model of this that was started years ago which is a serious attempt to get a competitive twin stunt ship that looks like the Hornet. This has great scale like appearance and has the numbers to be a good performing stunter. There has been some work to get it completed, but I do not know the status.
The second model on my list is the Grumman F7F Tigercat. This one is hard to get into a CL stunt package with its big radial engines. Windy Urtnowski did a great job of capturing the look of the Tigercat, and to me was the most attractive of the series of twins that he generated at the end of his competition stunt career. I had the opportunity to fly Windy's Tigercat at a Muncie Nats one year. It was a very comfortable airplane to fly and it showed why it was competitive. I would recommend someone to build it if they could get Windy's plans.
The third model is the Mitsubishi Ki 83. This was a twin developed in Japan near the end of WW II. I worked up some sketches some time ago to do a stunt twin that would capture the appearance of the airplane. I was using the size and dimensions of the Twin Pathfinder. (John, I know you know a little bit about this airplane. I flew Gordan's twin and it is just an outstanding stunt ship.) Unfortunately, because of the configuration of the Ki 83, it does not translate well for a CL stunt ship. The full size Ki 83 has relatively high aspect ratio wings, a long tail moment and a relatively small horizontal tail. It also has the large radial engines. When I tried to get those factors into something on the scale and configuration of a Twin Pathfinder, coupled with those round engine nacelles, it no longer had the appearance of the full scale Ki 83. The project never went beyond those crude sketches. One thing that allowed the Tigercat to be made into an attractive twin stunt ship is that the full scale Tigercat had a comparatively low aspect wing and was short coupled (like many US Navy fighter aircraft) which allows a stunt stunt version of the Tigercat to still capture the appearance of the full scale aircraft.
I have some good 3-views of the full scale Ki 83 if anyone is interested.
Keith