Yeah, it can build porky, but already I'm back down to 5 lbs, 3 ozs fully loaded. I have yet to lighten the airframe a touch, but I may just leave it at that weight. The only reason I would start making it go on a wood diet is if I can't get it to balance with shifting the receiver and battery. But I picked it up without receiver and battery in it and the CG was only 1/2-3/4" behind the spar. So once I pack that in the nose it should ballance, I did get the cowl and wheel pants built, did one thin coat of automotive filler on the sides, smoothed that over with the sanding bar, then with a sanding pad. Primered the cowl in white primer and set that aside to dry overnight, turned to the wheel pants, I didn't use the overlaping design the mold in. I just trim them down the centerline, sand the halfs on a flat board with 180 grit taped facing up, then line them up and tack them together with CA and work your way around the seam. Sand the seam a little lower and add the plastic filler to that and resand smooth. I had a friend show up last night and that killed my work for the night on the extra. So I'm down to just final fitting of the cowl and wheel pants, do a final smooth out on the airframe, laterally balance it left and right, then I can start covering. I spent about 1 hour going through airliners.com looking at color schemes for the extra, found a few that I loved, but way too much to layout on the plane. So I will narrow it down to one type of design and use the colors I want in that pattern.

I think the AX .46 will be more than enough to do the job of sport flying the plane, it won't be starving for power, and yes, it will feel heavier compaired to a ARF, but then again, newer plane designs are much lighter due to less structure, hence the one hard landing with your pulse and it ripped out the LG plate. I was in shock when I pieced back together my pulse wing like a crash investigator to see that the wing tube only goes through 2 ribs, and the only ply ribs is at the root, the rest was all balsa.The end of the sleeve for the tube in the wing had a small support that never even touched the inner tube. I decided to only build planes from now on, ARFs are built too cheap and are using hotmelt glue in some for assembly, I'll stick to a plane I know is built better and can be flown for many years before I have an issue arise. I'll be back on tonight working on it, I should have the cowl and wheelpants done, then final sand it.