Hi cbk07,

Nice job on your Extra. It's nice to see one in other than yellow, which is what mine is. My cowl was of excellent quality. The only complaint I had was that it was a bit to robust(heavy). It was very smooth and the paint was excellent. The trim lines match perfectly to the fuse, but the yellow isn't as close a match to the UltraCote as I would have liked to see.

Mine weighs 15lbs even, with a Taurus 2.6 (weighs within an ounce of your BME 50 with pitts-style muffler, mount and ignition), but I did some pretty extensive mods to bring the weight down. Yours should come in between 15.5 and 15.75 lbs without doing any lightening....or maybe even lighter since you did your own covering...and you're right, they even fly great at 16lbs.

If anyone wants to read details of what I did to mine you can read a review I wrote at www.rcaerosport.com under the review section.

BTW, my weight includes floors, photo realistic instrument panels and a photo realistic "profile" pilot. You might consider this route if you're concerned about weight. You could have a very realistic Patty pilot this way too.

Here's a picture...though it just looks like all the other yellow DP Extras except for the handsome pilot(you can see a better picture of the pilot figure in my Avatar and with the review):