Hi Jamie, I have one with an early 44 manual start which I bought damaged from a friend.

Probably the most important mods I made was the engine mount & some ali angle to support the rear engine mount 'shelf' which was showing signs of breaking off. Remarkably, the timber inside the shelf so you can tighten screws to it, stops just where you need the most strength, where the shelf joins the fuse.

The radio install is tight & all has to go in in the right order, starting with the tank (950cc Dubro). I did not use a header tank, just a felt clunk. Being manual start I only had to install the pump & a fuel valve in the fuse, no solenoids, a smaller ECU & a tiny ECU battery. To service the tank you have to make a lot of the radio install removeable but thankfully the servos are spread around the airframe.

From the front, the retract tank is siliconed in the nose, the two batteries go against the front former along with a Jetronic electronic retract valve & the pump is attached on the fuselage floor. All of this is fixed in position & you can still get the tank in & out. To hold the tank in position I made a former which screws in place into new blind nuts which are in the wing panel roots. This also holds the wings on at the front where they tend to spread.

The reciever, switch, fuel valve & ECU are mounted on a plywood plate which screws to two removable ply formers. To install this lot you install the formers, twist them 90 deg to the fuse then screw the shelf on which sort of wedges it all in. Sounds complicated but it's really quite simple & keeps everything seviceable. I have no pics of the install but if you need some I can take them & post them.

To help landings a lot of guys pop the ailerons up to help slow the model down. I have fitted a belly air brake with the servo behind the tank. The retracts are Spring Air units with wire legs, these can take a real pounding & not rip the gear mounts out, we also fly from grass.

I filled in the holes in the tailplane & covered the bottom surface & the leading edge with foil. Otherwise the slightest flame & your tail will be full of holes! I use a piece of bent sheet metal as a guard when starting.

Everywhere a bolt screwed up against balsa I recessed a bit of 3 mm ply so the bolt head didn't sink into the surface. Check the mounting points on the booms, mine were marginal & thouroughly re glued with epoxy.

I used the CG & control throws from a post around the No 110 mark. A word of advice, get some bright colours on your airframe somewhere, even with the 8 pound 44 the little Bobcat flies like a missile & is small & very hard to see. - John.