Well done DesertPig...

That's a tremendous amount of weight to save... 22.8 oz!!!!

With that said... if a person got to 5" CG, even at 17 lbs... it would probably be a fantastic flier... I thing CG may have been the culprit most of all... But of course the heavyness in the tail made it hard to get there...

What I'm getting at is that Torquemaster or anyone else wouldn't be required to do all these things you mentioned to gat a great flying airplane...

Sometimes (as is your case) going through the extra work to really maximize a planes weight and balance pays off bigtime...

Now... How 'bout a video for BME's website?