Thanks everyone.

Bruce, I was going to cut a bigger hole in front of the head since there are only two little slots cut for airflow. There are lots of little and not-so-little holes in the cowl to allow the air to escape, but I don't feel those slots are big enough for adequate cooling. Just one more thing on the list of things to do before it's really "finished".

The hole I cut for the glow igniter is also too small, so I need to widen that at some point as well. I also want to install the blind nuts to hold the wing bottom on, since it's pretty weak the way it looks now.

I also need to look over the entire plane and find the really weak points to strengthen them up. In looking through some of the old posts about the Spirit, there are quite a few parts where the wood is very weak like Campy suggested. (Thanks Campy!) I built it just for the experience and to be a lazy flyer with the ability for performance but I also don't want it to fall apart in mid air.

I have some Dubro nylon landing gear that I might end up installing. We'll see how the stock landing gear handles things.

I haven't decided what fueling method to go with yet. The fuel dots look good, so I might end up going with that. In the fuel tank there is a third nozzle for a fill tube, but I didn't cut it open. I'll probably end up getting some fuel dots at the LHS this week if they carry it.

Mounting the receiver/battery is very very tough. The instructions show them being tied to the fuel tank mount, but like I said, that wood is VERY thin and weak. It's like you could blow on it and it would snap. I might end up cutting up some spare balsa and building a kind of mounting bracket for them and epoxying it in. They just kind of flop around right now.

I guess I would have to say that I'm not feeling very comfortable with the plane. It seems like there are so many things on it that are weak, too thin, not laid out very well (battery/receiver mount) etc. It feels like on the very first flight it'll just fall apart. I have to spend some time this week going over the entire plane and finding the parts I'm not happy with and fixing them. I have some 1/16 and 1/8 5-ply that I can use, and I can pick up some triangle stock when I go to the LHS.

I might end up putting on the aluminum spinner as well, but that's a significant weight difference.