John,

Too bad about your crash! I had the same thing happen to me (twice). I used teh original LG plate as a template and cut another. Like the original one, I made the main plate out of two pieces of lite-ply laminated together. I backed this up with a piece of birch ply that funs forward from the wing saddle about 1/2 the length of the LG plate. I then mounted the gear with wing bolts threaded right into the new, thicker LG plate. I then fibre-glassed LG plate where it joins the other structural members. This all did not add a bunch of weight, and if anything happens the gear will break off. I questioned VF about these glue joints, they said that it was made this way on purpose.

Also, as a precaution, you can add some hard balsa "wedges" to the fuse sides just aft of the wings trailing edges. In the event you have another wingtip-first landing hard enough to break the wing bolts, this will keep the wing from slicing off the aft section of the fuse floor as mine did.

Sam, the "snap" you have experienced could have been caused by having your air-speed too low. The Extra dos not like to putt along at low speed too much, in my experience. If you are going to make a hard pull to vertical, make sure you have a little more speed in hand before making your elevator input.

Weather is OK for flying up here in the interior, unfortunatley, under the influence of too much coffee this morning I ripped apart a bathroom, now I have to re-assemble!