Im not too surprised. The strength of plywood is well known in aero and racing circles. For parts like stringers plywood is used instead of fiberglass when high

Im not too surprised. The strength of plywood is well known in aero and racing circles. For parts like stringers plywood is used instead of fiberglass when higher stiffness is required. Plywood is similar strength/weight as fiberglass which isn't too far off from carbon fiber. The issue with all popular composite materials like fiberglass, carbon fiber, and plywood is that their strength is highly directional. It takes a lot of skill and testing to make sure your part is strong enough in all directions force will be applied. There's some omnidirectional "mat" type materials you can get easily for fiberglass but you exchange the directional strength of weave for a non-directional but overall inferior strength of randomly oriented strands.