I built one of these years ago and flew it indoors and outdoors on calm mornings. When trimmed and flying well this model can do figure 8's in half a basketball court. This one uses an old Spektrum AR6000 receiver, two HS-55 servos, a Pixie(?) brushed motor speed control and 800mah 2 cell lipo packs. I need a few more rpm to gain altitude better and think maybe the old 2 cell packs are tired and should be re-tired. Geared motor is old GWS IPS "A" with 8x6 slow fly prop as recommended in kit instructions.Duration at full rpm is about 4 minutes. Model will thermal on any rising air current. Thread flying wires from kit have sagged. Covering is Coverlite or other lw iron on covering I had on hand. O-ring tires came off wheels.

The old Lipo are probably tired as you say, the 12mm motor in the GWS IPS "A" has short lived brushes too! Does Dare still exist?

Still in business, bought out by Brodak I think, same website:

http://www.darehobby.com/

http://www.darehobby.com/airplanes/a...lectric-02.htm

Nice job you've made of it too!
Just finished a Demoiselle..23" span, 4oz Flying weight... albeit with cambered sheet foam wings .
It was too easy not to.
A wee 1811 (10 gram)HK hxt motor is ample power .
Assuming your IPS motor isn't healthy, unlikely unless you have many hours on it, affordable replacements can be found , identified as a Geared tail rotor motor on a series of Helis. Try Helidirect etc..
IMO a wee BL motor would be both lighter and more powerful though.

Lighter might not be an asset in that case(very short front length)as the GWS IPS "A" is quite heavy compared to an equivalent brushless set-up. But then again would allow for a larger Lipo for balancing!

I found a light weight and small, squarish 800mah 2S 10C Park Zone Lipo that will probably improve climb a lot from added oomph plus lighter weight. I added a "front porch" to hold the battery pack more forward and CG is now about right. You have to zig zag to move foreward in a slight breeze and be ready for sudden up and down drafts. It's kinda hypnotic to watch.

PS the new 800ma 2S lipo did the trick. I may try the nickle-sized Erc 280 22g outrunner that I just bought from HL. Not interested in really tiny models, like larger ones that can fly indoors or outdoors on calm mornings using less exotic/fiddly power and RC gear.