He is right. The typical life cycle of a good lipo pack is about 250 to 400 cycles.

Let's say you have 3 packs and 3 charges in a day of flying for 9 flights.Ifwe use 300 cycles, then that would be about 100 days of flying from a lipo pack.

If you get out4 daysa month for a 6 month flying season that would be about4 years on a battery pack.How much does a battery pack cost? Depends on how big your plane is.

Let's say it is $50, so every 4 years you would replace 3 battery packs for $150. Want to be more conservative, then you replace them every 3 years. Fly more often than that, you can do the math.

I did a set of calculations one time. Over a 3 year period, the cost of fuel and the cost of batteries were within 25% of each other, depending on how much you payed for each. But again, the electric planes tend to be smaller. If you are flying 1/4 scale birds, the packs could be $300 to $400. While there are a lot of 1/4 scale electrics out there, most are fuel powered.


Charge times were mentioned earlier.

Today'shigh C rated Lipos can be charged at 2-3C and some even higher rates. That means a full charge in 20 to 30 miuntes.

In larger planes they oftenuse the A123 type cells which are also Lithium chemistry but can be chargedmuch faster, frequently taking a full charge in 10 to 15 minutes.

So battery turn around is approaching the typical turn around of a refueling with liquid fuels. Naturally if you don't fully deplete them then it takes less time to charge them.