Kev,
Good to see you building again.
I can strongly endorse the use of self tapping screws to secure the undercart so long as they are a decent size. I used five 3/4 inch No 10 screws. This turned out to be quite adequate, even for some very poor landings.
For what could be described as my absolute worst landing (when the plane spun in vertically from 100 ft!), the undercart ripped off leaving the centre box that ties together the fuse, the wings, the engine and the undercart essentially intact. A strong connection here would have taken out part of the fuselage making the repair much more difficult.
I don't have too many good things to say about the kit, or the DVD, but the structural design of that front box, the way it ties together all the major components, is quite brilliant. The disaster I mentioned above turned out to be repairable because the engine box collapsed within the fuselage structure absorbing most of the energy of the crash without much random damage. The repair work was to retract the engine and the engine box about one inch to it's original position and to rebuild former F1 in situ. And to tidy things up a bit, make a new cowling, and reattach the undercart.
A very simple repair compared to the write off I assumed after watching the crash. Too bad I neglected to take any photographs before and after the repair.
This reminds me of the most serious criticism I have of this whole project which is the lack of a full scale drawing of the plane. What were they thinking when they omitted that from the kit? There were so many times during construction, and during the repair, when Steve's ears must have been burning. I hope he isn't offended by bad language!
Dale