Here's an update. I've started to put it together and, as I mentioned above, there are a number of things that have been improved over the Calmato 40. And all in all the quality seems excellent down to the pre-installed string to pull the servo leads through the wing.

But there are also some of the same problems. Specifically, the rod guides for the elevator and rudder seem to have been messed up. The way they are set up (and they were set up the same way on the 40-size model I have) the left-side elevator guide goes to the left side servo and the right-side rudder guide goes to the right-side servo. This seems logical. But this creates too much curve for the metal control rods to handle and they both stick badly. Most models solve this problem (at least partially) by crossing the guides so that the right-side rod connects to the left-side servo and vice versa.

So I cut the guides free at the former behind the servo tray and switched their positions. This helped but did not completely solve the problem. There is still a lot of sticking and I'm not quite sure why. On my 40-sized Calmato I ended up removing the guides completely and just using old-fashioned dowel-type control rods. I'd like to use the metal rods that came with the kit. BTW, another minor problem is that the rods for the ailerons are too thin for the plastic clevises provided. The clevises just slip right on instead of threading on. So I'll probably have to replace those.

As for the convertion to a tail dragger, that's fairly simple. The first step is to cut out about 2" of bottom of the fuse just forward of the bulkhead that the wing slips into. You'll be slotting in a 2" x about 4" (width of the fuse) piece of 1/4" aircraft ply. Cut out the bottom of the fuse and a 1/4" deep (by 2" wide) cutout in the side-wall so that the ply piece fits snugly. The rear edge of the ply piece will be butted against the wing saddle former. This will provide a solid attachment point for the forward gear.

Before epoxying in the ply piece, I fitted four large T-nuts at the position of the holes in the gear bracket I bought. BTW, I recommend using large nylon bolts that way if you have a rough landing the gear will get sheered off cleanly without ripping the bottom out of your model (as will happen if you use metal bolts).

The tail is pretty simple too -- especially since you lock in the elevator by putting in two screws from the bottom. It's a simple thing then to use these same screws to anchor the tail wheel. Any commercial 60-size tail wheel assembly should do (with a little ingenuity).

Forget trying to run a control rod from the rudder servo to the tail wheel. What a hassle. Most tail wheel kits just have you link the tailwheel "axel" to the rudder through a hole in the elevator. This works perfectly.