From what I could see at the LAA rally, there is zero storage room on board the Blackshape, not even room for a flight case never mind the two pooches who often accompany me.
Well, really isn’t it meant to be a military trainer?
Given the hype about the aircraft in the german micolight community and the attention it got on the Aero, it’d be narrowing down the potential customer base a lot, if it were to be a sole military trainer. I’d expect at least some method of carrying luggage. Even the Extra300 allows for this.
Or should I just build the electric version myself as an experimental?
Go for it 
Although carbon structures are complicated stuff compared with other materials.
not much more than proper glass structures :-)
But this is the reason for the higher necessary safety factors in FRP-structures. If you aren’t really into the structural calculations, you’ll build very heavy. In that case, a (covered) welded steel / aluminium structure might prove lighter with similar aerodynamic benefits.
If the experience in certified four-seaters is anything to go by, plastic aircraft are not lighter than conventionally riveted metal aircraft – the columbia 400 and Cirrus SR22 have the same MTOW as a turbo saratoga, which is a six seater with a few 100 lbs more payload.. Rhe benefits are more n manufacturing and finish.
I think the benefits are in that it is much cheaper – in tooling costs – to make 3D curves.
For example most metal planes have the hull tapering in a straight line from the back of the cockpit to the tailcone. Whereas most composite ones narrow sharply after the cockpit and this reduces the mass of air that has to be displaced during flight.
The sharp narrowing can be done in metal but it is expensive. The proper way to do it is with press tooling (which achieves a very low component cost) but practically nobody does that for aircraft. It is done on cars. Socata, on the TBM, achieve 3D curves in metal by stretching a sheet over a mould (a mandrel?); I’ve actually seen it done at Tarbes and it is a very slow process, taking an hour or two per component produced. That component was the upper cowling. The resulting component, by the time factory overheads go in, probably costs thousands, but (along with vrious “working practices” down there) you can sink that sort of cost into the price of a TBM or a jet fighter.
Then, most certified composite designs chuck away the advantage by having a fixed gear
The tooling required to make 3D curves in composite is, I think, constructed from epoxy, and is cheap to make.
The benefit og carbon is you can make shell structures of complex and exact shapes that are both extremely light and extremely strong and stiff. The down side is that to achieve these benefits, it requires tools, molds, jigs and Owens that cost much more than an aircraft and it also takes lots of space. No problem if you plan to sell 100+ aircraft, but it will never be cost effective for small scale production.
Rutan’s method of foam an fibre will achieve complex shapes with simple tools, but it will also be heavy and “soft”. Maybe it could be lighter and stiffer by using carbon cloth instead of glass, but I have not seen anyone do that.
I think almost everyone plans to sell 100+ aircraft. Unfortunately with many aircraft nowadays (especially in the ULM/LSA-Market), most designers try to fit a business case to an aircraft they designed and did not design for a business case. Thus, you have to cut costs on certification and this means you have to live with higher safety margins for for frp-aircraft to fulfil specification requirements (or go through a longer process of certifying a lighter structure).
On the other hand, if you have a steel (or aluminium) tubing taking the loads, you might very well get the aerodynamic advantages of a 3D surface with comparatively easy load calculations and certification. It propably wouldn’t sell that “good”, but when looking at the light aircraft market on the Aero, I assume they all don’t sell that many aircraft in the first place.
Then, if you want to reap the benefits of 3D surfaces, you have to be able to design them. Taking a look through said exhibition halls, I don’t think many of those manufacturers are capable to do so, even if they may have funny colourful pictures of allegedly sophisticated CFD-Simulations. On some of those designs, you even don’t need real data to see that it leaves ample room for improvement. Or that the designer didn’t have a clue. This must not necessarily result in a bad or unsafe aircraft, but it might and usually they don’t even get close to live up to their claims.
You can build very strong and light with frp and there is much more potential, especially in the aircraft category of the SR22, DA-40/DA-42 and alike. And I think it is a viable way to go. But there are more reasonable ways to design a fast and light aircraft, cutting on engineering costs and tooling. Wood comes to mind. Or steel tubing with frp fairings…
I am 196cm and fit quite nice. The 208 is larger on the inside :-) Visibility is great and she flies quite nice. Just the center stick is a bit odd, but then again it’s aerobatic…
I must admit to never having tried on a Bölkow 207 but other than the clever design for visibility the small cabin is very noticeable…
The 208 is sorta kinda aerobaric too and has two sticks
The solution to low wing versus high wing is to have one of each!
Gruß aus Bayern
