Originally Posted by Outrider6

Well, it turned out to be yet another nightmare that I caused. Despite my checking of the balance during framing, and it seemingly being ok, it ended up where it would have taken 7 oz of lead on the firewall to get it to balance at the rear CG limit. The worst part was that to get down to a mere 7 oz, I lightened the tail as much as possible without surgery. I can't force myself to add lead to an airplane, and I didn't want to buy a heavier engine (either a 1.25 or 1.5 glow, or a small gasser). I was sick of dealing with it, so I sold it for way, way less than the $700+ of materials I had in it. I sold the Saito separately. Over $400 for just the wood for this plane.

It was an epic failure, and my fault. Lesson learned (I think). But at 9 lb, 4 oz, it would have flown extremely well on that Saito 100, if it had balanced.

But if you build it out of lite-ply like the original, then it would balance just fine. It was quite fun and very challenging to build from just the plans.