ORIGINAL: YNOT
As always, AMA and DB 3 years behind the times.
I don't think it fair to say AMA is behind the times on this issue, Tony. At least two regular contributors to MA (Bob Aberle and Red Scholefield) are clearly up to speed on care and feeding of lithium batteries. If there is a need to remind people not to let their guard drop when it comes to safe handling of batteries, and I'm not saying there isn't, it should come from one of those guys or somebody else with comparable recognition as a credible source on the topic. DB's qualifications? "I have gotten involved in electric helicopter flying........."
What sticks in my craw is that "The Board" in control of my favorite flying site takes the sophomoric ramblings from AMA's Grand Poobah as the Word of God. I suppose the next goofy rule re LiPos will be that only packs charged on balancing chargers are allowed because DB said "A large number of the fires that have been reported to me involve chargers that do not have any active balancing component." I have read the compilation of LiPo failure reports [link=http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209187]Here[/link] since it started over 3 years ago, and don't see the correlation that DB claims. I wonder how the "large number of the fires that have been reported to (DB)" managed to be a non-intersecting set apart from the data set of such reports that Jim McPherson has collected. I smell a natural soil amendment from a bovine source.
Abel