Hi Guenter about the Hornet, (not sure about the 2) but certainly the last model by Don Shoebridge has been a fun project for my son and I. He did nearly all the building, I handled finance and research.
The build was fine and took around ten months, we both had zero experience or mechanical skills with engines metal or electronics so a bit of a learning curve there. Our workmanship in comparison to the superb work I see on this forum leaves much to be desired however she flies very nicely. If we were to do it again would go with the design tail but down the route that Dan McGee has thought of going with a metal tail instead of foam, though that seems to work well, but is fragile and can develop bubbles. Our hanger buddy has an ultralight one with a fabric tail which worked well.
We had help from Dan with machining some of the parts and the tail, he was very helpful to us for which we were most grateful.
I would in retrospect probably go with a Rotax 582, but this is simply based on my experience of the upgrading of a Bensen I fly from 503 to 582 and the improvement in performance was very noticeable.
We found that trying for ultralight with this model can be done, but with a very determined effort, and doing without things that we felt would make life a little easier for us. We decide to go over and to register it as as an EAB.
We ended up at about 350lbs but with ten galls of fuel capacity which will give a better endurance and range.
There are at least two or three more being built and should hopefully be flying soon.