Old thread... so how did it come out?

I have never done this hobby but I think when I finally do, I will come up with a design in X-Plane's PlaneBuilder before making anything in the workshop. X-Plane P/B lets you see how something is going to fly and all the basic aspects are there from airfoils to wings to propulsion and stability and control. It's fairly crude for sure, but you can design something and see if it flies with reasonable fidelity in the simulator and get a feeling for what works and what doesn't. You can also build remote control flying skills which will be pretty handy when you actually have a model. To do that, set the simulator to chase view and distance yourself from the model using the "-" and "+" keys. Then you can build the model airplane and verify that it works. The comparison should be pretty interesting.