i had great success with a piper cherokee, converted to electric bought the parts from china, built the kit, got it all together for less than 50$ and it is just so cute and fun, will range out pretty far but cooler looking up close.. do not skin with balsa, my recommendation is DOCULAM look it up on google and buy you some, it wont shrink enough to break the wood, but does shrink down and stick nicely to these guillow kits, plus it is very lightweight and can be painted easily.. weight is definitely a huge issue with these planes, but the guys in the 1/2a forum can definitely give you some specs/ guidelines.. they all said no more than 6 oz on mine and i thought no way, but actually it was quite easy to do it weighs about 5.8 ounces, so no problem, plus it flies really well/stable due to low wing loading, so definitely check out the 1/2a forum here on rcu.