The plane does fly well at 5lbs 9 oz. Just suprised that I am over the recommendation by this much!!! It's like a pound and that would be around 20% at 5lbs. If you go to my gallery, the plane is in there. All the ones I have finished are there. I have been busy! Love to build, if there were only arfs I would have never have made an investment in the hobby. Flying is fun too, don't get me wrong what really attracted me though was to create the thing you are flying. I have had good success with the Sig brand kits. They were hard to get for awhile and I got scared and bought 2 kits for each of their planes that I chose to pursue. Just in case I would lose the ones I have and not be able to replace for whatever reason. I really like the Somethin Extra kit so I got 2 spares for that one!!!!! I want to build one ofthem as nice as I can, and was thinking of buildingone just for maximum performance hence the subject of the thread. Eventually I want to try some scale builds and maybe some scratch from plans also. Idid do some searching on the internet and see that people who are building very light versions of this kit are doing many of the thingsmentionedby you guys. Also, looks like they also are making their own sticktype tail surfaces and ailerons to save weight. Ialso saw wheremany others have exceeded 5-1/2 lbs like I did. Ithought maybe I was doingsomething wrong or something.I am only a low experience pilot who probably couldn' even appreciate the difference between an excellant plane and a pretty good plane, but just want to do them the best I can. Maybe someday I will appreciate the work I'm putting in now. I know one thing- I always add a little tristock where I think it may be needed, and not ready to give that up. Not a half pound though! I couldn't 3D unless I made a bunch of mistakes in a row! I'm still amazed with the fourstars and midstar, but want to have some nice SE's for when I'm ready. Thanks for the excellant and quick responses.</p>