RE: My New Futaba 18 MZ
The 14MZ is a nice radio but it always feels a little strange in my hands (I had JR for years before I bought the 14MZ and they are a different feel).
The real benefits to me on the 18 over the 14 are:
Much faster to boot up (after the first boot up of the day)
A MUCH longer lasting battery - I ran mine last night for over 2 hours, (about 1 of which was setting up a plane just to get my head around the menus) and it only had lost about 15% of its charge in that time.
The programing response time is very fast and the menus are a little easier to understand for dummies like me.
It contains a built in programmer for the S-Bus servos etc
It can have a keyboard, screen and mouse plugged directly into it.
No need to find a dark shady spot to be able to read the screen.
It has a much nicer feel in my hand (could be psycological too)
but more importantly to me - it has telemetry. Coming very soon are some sensors that include temps, altitude, GPS, RPM, voltages and a few others. That information can be shown on the screen in real time (which is pretty useless really as watching the screen instead of th eplane will usually end in tears) but it can also be recorded during the flight (along with stick movements!!). Now I will know EXACTLY where I crashed, why I crashed, and how I crashed - add an on board camera and I will be able to even SEE all that.
Come to think of it - that might not be such a good thing - now I will have to blame something new for my crashes.