perfectly acceptable.

Agreed. They are there to use, whether it be for planing or leveling.

If you got'em use'em. I just can;t get over the fact that it didn't come for Formula with'em. Every one I have ever seen had 280s or bigger, just wierd

Formula's prop selections are kind of wierd, I had an 02 292 with twins turning 28 pitch bravo 1 props and never had to use tabs for much of anything except to level ride heights with passengers on board, now a friend of mine just bought the 06 brouchere 271 from Magicfloat and with a 496/425 pulling a 26 bravo, it struggles to plane., it doesn't make much sense because the hulls are very similar between the two boats, his boat tops at about 62 mph with half a tank and 2 people turning app 4900 rpms. Seems like to much prop slippage to me. but then again,,,,I may be wrong.

I have a friend with a 2005 27 with a 525 in it and it takes forever to get on plane. He opens the exhaust and it helps but with silent choice on it takes like forever. Its for sale if interested.

I have a 95 model 271. It is not a step bottom, but it planes instantly, really with 1/5 throttle or less is jumps out of the water and noses over. It has a new rebuilt (stock) 502 efi with a 1:36 bravo spinning a 22 lab finish 4 blade.

Hmmm, quite a mixed bag of results here between the boats mentioned, it doesn't make sense. It's gonna be a long winter waiting to get to the bottom of this.

To get a 271 fastech to plane, you MUST move the spacer in the drive as Mopower has said. It makes a world of difference. As soon as you get on plane, hit the trim button a bit, because if you don't you will have nasty bow steer. (thats why the spacer is on the "wrong" side for a B1) Plus you need to put the tabs down. Moving the spacer and tabs down make a world of difference, but the boat is never going to go on plane like a Ski Nautique.