Mark, if you feel comfortable with trying a trike, I'd go for it. It does look nicer, and will spare you the headaches of repairing the nose wheel. You'll just need to tweak in some right rudder occasionally to compensate for a tendency of the plane to pull left during take off. Dbruening80 might be able to add some right thrust to the engine mounting to correct that. But the Midstar really isn't difficult to to take off as a tail dragger. It's a very easy mod to perform. And is shown very clearly in the plans and instructions.