Even if you added three pounds which would be a horrendous amount of weight, I doubt it would fly any worse. As far as I can tell, there's no carbon fibre laminate over the foam core (I have a tango in the garage), and looking at those pictures I don't see any there. I would question the wings, but Dave has some building experiance and know's what's safe and what's not.

I can pretty much gurantee that Todd will oversee this project and his stamp of approval will be on it prior to a re-maiden.

It's a good little plane. I agree the package price at 1300 is relatively inexpensive, but at what dollar point do you decide to trash the plane and buy new? I guess it's only relative to how much money/time you have. Dave puts out good products and recently learned a lot about Hitec Servos and why they should not be on a Mirage . I suspsect this airplane will be fantastic and I can't wait to see the finished product.