Well that's sort of my point Erik, the technology is fine, but the learning curve (read: people) and a few faulty components usually spell disaster in the beginning of any new technology, some just have the capacity to be more dangerous than others. Added to the fact that there is NOT a lot of step by step info out there right now, this usually means whoever is messing with it had better know what they are doing or take a LOT of time to research and be very very careful along the way. And most people around here don't do that. Heck most people don't even bother to read the directions at all. Hence why we have had so many lithium battery fires (not just lipos). LOTS more than the general public is aware of, and I'm only privvy to that knowledge because of a particular incident involving a plane I built for someone and new FAULTY lithium batteries. Believe me when teh legal wheel gets turning, all kinds of buried secrets pop up
That plus watching so MANY dumbos at my local field screw up royally because a local sponsored pilot keeps telling them to use a certain brand of lithium battery, then telling them "no special precautions, it's totally safe". And of course, you can imagine what happens when local dumbo hooks up his hobbico fast field charger and wonders "what's that smell". Then he's asked why he put them in his plane with zip ties and is charging it with a sport charger at 2 amps on a nicad setting, and he says "because {insert sponsored hot shot pilot's name here} told me I needed these batteries".
He didn't tell you you needed a special charger? "no".
He didn't tell you NOT to hard mount them to the airframe? "no."
He didn't tell you that you should really take them out of your $4000 plane while charging? "no".
He didn't tell you they could catch fire under certain circumstances? "No he said they were perfectly safe and nothing could go wrong, it even says so on the web site. He just told me I needed them."
Did you at least read the directions even? "uh well I saw where you hook this wire up to this and charge through this wire here."
This actually happened at the field the other day. And this was a reciever battery, a lipo. I was flying and I smelled electrical smoke, turned around and this HUGE plane was smoking.
Now this is only the LATEST installment of some of the stupid crap I've personally seen. Can ya see why I'm cringing a little?
And yeah I do tend to pull out the stops in a discussion and play devil's advocate. Hey it gets boring reading the same old "what engine should I put in my ____" posts.
-Mike