ORIGINAL: DaveR

As the original poster, maybe I need to clarify. I hate electric. It has no soul, and doesn't interest me in the least. I fly for fun, as I will never be Andrew Jesky, and I suspect there are a lot more people flying pattern for fun than are doing this for a living. To me there is nothing ''fun'' about electric, so no matter if it is better, and all the ''cool'' guys fly electric, I don't want it. I like cool engines, and YS are cool, no doubt the pinnacle of alcohol-fuel production engines. But they are 1) expensive, and 2) exorbitant to operate. I can live with being expensive, but I hate high operating costs. So does everybody, remember, even sport fliers are leaving glow for electric and gasoline. So the future has to be bleak for YS, just look at Kodak. YS could get into electric, but seriously, what could they offer that Hacker, Neu, etc. doesn't already offer? Pattern is switching to electric, sport fliers switching to electric or gas, yeah, they make the best heli engines, but I am sure they will be moving to electric or gas too, they are not immune to the price of glow fuel. So who is going to buy enough glow fuel engines to keep YS in business? And that is not even mentioning other disadvantages such as corrosion and availability. Ever run out of glow fuel on a Sunday? Most hobby shops are open only during business hours and less than 7 days a week. And that is assuming they have your fuel in stock. I'm sure the technical difficulties are daunting, but what choice does YS really have? If YS wants to continue in the model engine market, they better figure out how to make a gas engine in the next few years, or they will be bankrupt and without a market like Kodak.