OK Steve Yes I must confess in your first post with all the talk of a Skyraider Mach 1 indeed my mind saw Skyraider A1 and of course that scale airplane has a short nose moment and a hugh hole up front, a type that is ideal for mounting the battery up front and the types to benefit the most.

However one of the sets of pictures I posted was not of that type it is infact a Kadet Senior trainer that I use for almost all the primary training. Anyway lets get back to your airplane, I did search on it and it appears to me to be pretty much a genaric forty sized trainer. Please correct me if I am wrong.

If you are carrrying a lot of nose wait and simply getting rid of a bolted tail set that will allow you to get rid of a little of that nose wait then by all means go ahead and glue that puppy. Bolted tail assemblys on a simple trainer type of that size is nothing more than a sales pitch to sell more, its all about how fast they can be assembled, read Gimmick. Glue it.

Now if using a forward battery mount in front of the firewall will help things also and you,ve a mind to do it i. e. the motivation then by all means do it.

OK lets get to that engine. I actually do own one LA 46, its not an engine I would ordinarilly spend time on. However in a buyout I made couple years ago their was a plastic ARF seaplane called a Ready Two. Now this thing had a thourghly clapped out LA 46 on it, Heck that engine looked like it had been whooped with an ugly stick. I thought I would drag it along on my next trip down to Havasu for some water sport after I replaced the completely unrealistic prop it had on it with a APC 11x4 . Well that airplane using that clapped out LA rattle trap made that airplane perform just dandy.

It impressed me enough that I made a takeoff dolly and have flown it off our home field many times and just landed it in the gravel.

Now using a long flat prop like that does not increase your top speed at all, actually it reduces your top speed but it shortens takeoffs and rates of climb at lower speeds and this often is what folks perceive as a faster airplane.

Many older engines similar to the LA and the LA's tend to rattle at idle as the main bering wears and heck as long as they run fine they get even better and sound for all the world just like a teakettle. I use to love my little K&B .20 and .28 Teakettles.

Sorry for the various digressions but by all means fix her up iffin ya feel like it.

John