Unusual Start Behavior

FSX

Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Haven't flown the Hellcat much recently, so this is an old gripe. Tried manual start a couple times with the same result - following the procedures to the letter (as far as I can tell), I hit the starter and the Hellcat pivots on the wheels and plants the nose into the deck. Needless to say, hard to get much flying done after the prop and cowl have been bent to hell. Been living with hopping into her, already turning, but it takes away from some of the fun, not being able to bring her to life myself. Also have the A2A WOP:3 P-47 Razorback w/ Accusim - freaking phenomenal airplane - and I love to fire that up from a cold, dark cockpit. She starts reliably when the Accusim doesn't throw me a curve - so far I've only observed binding flight controls (on deck, thank God) and a gear failure to retract after takeoff, assuming those weren't self-induced. Any ideas what is going wrong that's preventing me from enjoying the ol' Hellcat to a greater extent?

Also, another small question: can the loadout be changed from the default, i.e. I want to start with a slick airplane, or just a belly tank, etc.? If so, is this just done through the payload/fuel screen?

SBD-3 is looking good, and will probably be added to my stable whenever she comes on-line.

Thanks.