I spoke to Max at BME Aircraft about these... He has the prototype built by the assembly standards of the production planes.

With a BME 50 he said it came in at 15.5 lbs. When I asked if he thought the production planes would come in heavier he stated "no way".

He was very excited about it's flying characteristics too... one quote was that you could be heading straight down at idle, slam the elevator to full up and it would elevator down slow, stable and very vertical.

Seems many of the new 50cc offerings have been coming in 1-2 lbs heavier than expected, and if these do finish out at 15.5 will certainly be a keeper.

They are a tad bigger too at 85"...