The M7 boasts a parasol configuration that is not uncommon for seaplanes. The wing has a strut-braced structure, which reduces the spar weight and brings the lift loads to the landing gear beam then to the hull. This makes an efficient combination of structures that reduces weight by 40 lbs compared to a cantilever wing. The struts carry all but 200 lbs of the wing lift at 1G. This is nearly the weight of the engine and propeller. The internal fuselage structure sees only asymmetric loads and pitching moments.
The propeller is aligned with the horizontal tail. The horizontal stabilizer is in the inclined prop wash. This nearly cancels the effect of the high thrust line. Direct thrust pushes the nose down, while the propwash pushes the tail down, resulting in no pitch trim change with power.
The wake of the wing does not interfere with laminar flow as it is below the horizontal stabilizer in cruise. At stall attitude the separated wake of the wing remains well above the tail. This preserves the strong pitch stability and enables rapid recovery without tail buffeting.