When this topic was first posted I wrote a post about how I would not recommend this, how this was a death trap of the first order. An unengineered Eagle is blown up in a single burst from any capable ship. The post was full of equal parts doom and gloom. Matter of fact I just had to clear it to write this post. But I opted not to actually submit it because who am I to drop rain on your enthusiasm? But yeah, it's a death trap.
But! There are those of us who love small-ship combat. The problem is without engineering, there just isn't enough defense capability to ensure survivability in the current Elite paradigm. Especially in the Eagle. A Courier could be a different prospect if it has any appeal. But even there, engineering will make a world of difference in terms of integrity, shields and speed. I have a battle Courier, but I'm not sure how well she'd do with no engineering frankly.
I also own a iEagle. It's engineered too of course, built to run ludicrous speed and I use it as a wake scanner, zipping at 820 m/s to scan the next one. I don't however, use it for combat, and it's not armed.
