Maiden Flight!
I think I had my battery a little bit too far forward. I had issues getting the airplane on the step during takeoff. What finally helped was dialing in some up elevator trim. At speed, the tail then had enough leverage to lift the nose out of the water. As you can see in the video though, that almost bit me, as the second the plane broke free of the water, it pitched nose up hard. I recovered it, and once I adjusted the trim again, it flew as advertised, very slow and docile.
My landing left something to be desired, again I think I had it set too nose heavy, as the elevator didn't have the authority to flare enough on landing. Luckily there was no damage done, and the plane can be flown again.
I would have flown a second or third time, but the air temperature this morning is well below freezing. This meant that any spray would almost instantly freeze to the fuselage. I had so much ice on the right wing that it actually forced the right sponson under the water. In addition, the elevator froze in place and so I decided to take it inside to thaw before I tried again.
All in all, I think
@Dr. Looping Looie hit it out of the park with this design. I plan on flying mine almost exclusively off the water, so I have the battery on the charger and the plane on a heater to melt/thaw for this afternoon. Once in the air it flew extremely well, very responsive on simple 3 channel control. I will move the battery back a little bit in an effort to ease water handling. I think I will also dial in some more elevator travel in my TX. Maybe that will help as well.