1 - Charge your battery only half the time (i.e. intead of 16 hours charge, use 8). That way you save half the battery's weight.

2 - Replace any metal gears in your servos by low density plastic ones. Also remove any redundant wiring. And using only one screw is a good idea.

3 - Fill your plane tires with helium.

4 - Never use a spinner

5 - If you are running a gasser, don't use oil on the fuel, it's too dense.

6 - On rudder pull-pull systems which use steel wire, use only one wire, the thinner you can get, no need for 2.

7 - Drill the wing spars with several lightning holes 1/8" apart. Their diameter should be roughly 85% of the spar's width. Don't worry about stength, the plane will be so light that it may not need them anyway.

8 - Cut in half the number of wing ribs.

9 - Forget about on/off plugs. Make direct wire conections.



PS: If you follow these advice, do at your own risk. :banghead:

Hi Jon, I did all of those things to my new Texan :thumbup:
I did a couple of extra things that you didn't mention.. I only have one bolt in the motor mount,and one bolt holding the motor to the mount, I made sure to put the bolts one on each side for better balance.I also left off one landing gear. Frits brought my trainer in on one wheel one time,so I know it can be done. I also removed those little bits of fuel line that were on the clevises to keep them closed, those things are over rated. And I coiled the antenna wire around the receiver so it would not be flopping around.

Will you test fly it for me this weekend :dance:

Don

Sounds like you did all of the modifications right <_< I'll be out Sunday, look forward to seeing it then :thumbup:

:twocents: Don't forget the Servo TRAY!! Weight can be saved by drilling lightning holes all thru it. Also using a solvent to remove most of the glue is benifical. Coarse Don's already familar with that portion. :what:

Don't forget to use CA for ALL construction. Especially for gluing in the firewall and the tail surfaces, epoxy just adds too much weight.