If airplaneAddict's Poorboy is still holding up by the time I get around to covering my own plane, I may just try it myself, which will give us a second test plane to see how it holds up over time. Definitely venturing into the realm of experimenting. How fast does it age and degenerate vs fabric systems, how well will it resist tears, how well does it patch, and how well will it hold paint on...?
At under $100 to cover my Volmer, I can't argue with it as an experiment. It would keep me way well under my $999 target... I budgeted a whole lot for fabric covering. This would be more like, $600 total to build a 3 axis plane. I've worked with heat shrink before (not the boat stuff) and like working with it. Store it in a completely, absolute dark building.
Tempted to just buy $10 worth of the stuff as a sacrificial experiment to see what it's like working with the stuff... cover my rudder, and start throwing golf balls at it as hard as I can, testing various paints on it, and anything else I can think of... or any other test you guys can come up with to throw at it... mounting it in the back of a truck and take it up to 80mph+... and drive around with it regularly at 55mph... leave it out in full direct sun and the weather all the time... real world stress testing vs. number calculating... test the stuff to destruction (the covering, not my rudder frame), I'll replace it anyway, it's just a test.
Someone go liberate ten bucks out of their wives pocketbooks, in the name of science... ;-) I'll probably have lots of left over, so for me spending a stamp, I could mail square foot samples out to anyone in the U.S. that wanted a piece to do their own fiddly farty tests on... stretched over a home made picture frame.