ORIGINAL: MercerAUST
I also have the FG-20 with which I have had no problems. The Saitos are very expensive, but can pay for themselves in fuel costs even over a 2-stroke gas engine.
While I love the sound and craftmanship of the Saito FG line, and the FG-20 is attractive at the current $399 price, Ican easily fly for over 20 minutes with an 8oz fuel tank with my NGH GT-17 2-stroke gas engine.With the FG-20 costing over $150 more, for a similar power output, even if the FG-20 used NO fuel, and gasoline cost $4.00/gallon (not counting oil but since we're assuming that the FG-20 doesn't use any fuel that seems fair), it would still take 300 full 8oz tanks for the fuel savings to pay for the added cost. That would mean between 60 - 100 hours of flight time - assuming that the FG-20 magically operates without any gasoline.
I would still love a FG-20 (at the lower price - not the $699 price). But it would be hard to make the fuel economy case against another <u>gasoline </u>engine. Against a similar displacement <u>glow </u>engine might be another story.