This reply goes out to Greg or anyone else who has more experience with this than me (been doing this for about 2 months). I was noticing the "watts/lb" guidelines that were placed here. Now, I know that they are guidelines, so it is not cast in concrete.

I was just wondering whether this was just opinion or a more widespread agreed-upon rule of thumb. The reason I ask is because of a book I purchased ("Getting Started in Backyard Flying") and their recommendations seem to be much less than this (only 1.5 watts/oz or 24 watts/lb for docile flyers and 2 watts/oz or 32 watts/lb for sports flyers).

Are the numbers from the book for smaller park-sized flyers mentioned within the book (never going above size 400 motors in the publication), or are they just off-base ? Personally, I like the numbers posted here because they look to put you toward the higher-end of the spectrum and look to say that it is better to have a touch-more power when you need it (and would not have it) than to have lower power and want it (but not have it).

Keep up the good posts and decent recommendations. I look to this site to help me make intelligent choices on what planes might suit my "fun level" and what i would need to make them behave in a manner that would be less likely to frustrate me.