I dont think its an arguement just good discussion, but on the issues of weight I hve found one simple pemise and I think that it was said years ago by a very wise man .The statement must have had much more meaning to those who truley knew avation when it was stated "we dont build them to survive a crash , we build them to fly" .
When I started with warbirds every possible piece of advice came at me on how difficult they were to fly, do this , do that , use rudder, fly only on sunny days with wind in your hair ect ect ect.
So as you can imagine I was nervous until I found one simple consistant element that defined (for me ) the level of difficulty of any warbird I have flown with the exception of Jets .
That one single element was "wing loading" and the one simple formula regadless of what plane , what airfoil , what urban legend mostly created on RCU , the lighter the wing loading the easier the plane was to fly , it was that simple. The only other factor ever to enter into the simple uncomplicated world of flying warbirds was -washout and for the most unless poorly designed (Top Flight Gold Edition P40 Kit ) , I never needed to worry about washout , because it was typically done correctly at the factory or plan stage .
'So remoeving all the facts and unknowns on "can a CMP plane withstand an 18 pound flying weight " the fact that has held up for me has been -keep it light and it flys right !!! Its that simple .
If you want to see why there is a incredible craze on simple 55" thru 65" EPO foam warbirds , simply try one and you will see that it looks like a warbird , its sounds like one , it has retracts , flaps and many bells and whistles but it flys like a trainer , why ? all because of wing loading !!!!
Enjoy the Zeros , great mods so far keep them going !!!