Yes agreed for NiMh/NiCd. Here is something I found on the web for A123. Cut these numbers in half for safety and 60-70 flights is just a ridiculous waste of money to me. Like I said though, planes are like the stock market. You have to do what allows you to sleep peacefully at night/have a good day at the field.
In 2006, two A123 cells were put on a 100 percent depth-of-discharge (DOD) test at 23 degrees Celsius at a 1C/1C charge/discharge rate.
The results? After more than 20,000 full DOD cycles, the cells still have about 65 percent of their initial capacity remaining. To put this in perspective, if a battery is fully changed and discharged once per day, 20,000 cycles is equivalent to approximately 55 years!
Originally Posted by
P-40 DRIVER
I'm not sure I would dump my batteries after one season either. But the catastrophic failure rate goes up tremendously after 2 to 3 years of use. So for the guy who just wants to buy and fly without doing all the monitoring and testing, replacing you batteries every year is cheap insurance. If you want to do testing and monitoring, every 2-3 years is a safe bet.