Bo, The 40's were more than enough power, doesn't sound possible and it surprised me too. If i recall it weighed 18 pounds. It is a light structure and i used Coverite and K&B paint at the time. Not the lightest covering/paint combo for sure. $300 doesn't sound too bad for all the parts that are involved with this project. Bates Plans for the Rapide are actually the RC Sweitzer drawings. They are fantastic, very accurate with a lot of details. I bought my plans and fiberglass parts from Sweitzer at the time when the design was first released. The rights have since been sold to Jerry Bates. The only thing i would consider difficult about the N struts was the time it took to field assemble the entire plane. It took 45 minutes to assembly and 30 minutes to disassemble. Most all of the construction is straight forward, the top wing has a slide in arrangement that is kind of unusual but it worked out fine.