ORIGINAL: aeajr
Glow fuel, based on what I have seen, seems to run in the $25-$50 range.
I get 15% nitro fuel for $10 a gallon, or $7.50/gallon in bulk at my club.
...So consider the cost of a gallon of fuel = to the cost of 1=2 battery packs...
Whoa... lets compare apples to apples here...
To get "nitro plane performance" in a similar sized electric, you need a brushless motor and LiPo batt packs. If you want to fly 3-4 flights without having to wait an hour to recharge your LiPos, you need 3-4 batt packs. A LiPo pack for, say a ".46 nitro" sized electric, is going to run you $80 -$100 easy... now your talking $300 -$400 just for the batteries... that's about a 2 year supply of nitro for me and my .46 sized nitro planes.
Don't get me wrong... cheap, low performance park fliers with brushed motors and NiMH/NiCd cells can be fun, but comparing the cost of running one of those with a much higher performance nitro plane just doesn't make sense. You get what you pay for, and I believe for an electric plane of similar performance and size of a nitro plane, you'll pay much more. For that extra money, you do get a cleaner, quieter plane, relative to the nitro version.
You can completely power off an electric plane in the air and turn it back on reliably.
You can... but so what? Why would you want to? If you just want to glide to save power/fuel, you can idle back a nitro plane and then rev it up again too.
Since you don't have to start the plane before it is ready to fly, some people feel this makes electrics safer, especially around kids. No spinning props on idling motors need be avoided. You turn the motor on after you set the plane on the runway or you turn it on when you are ready to hand launch.
IMO, electrics are more dangerous in this respect. To get the prop going on a nitro plane, you have to hook a glow starter up to it and
try start it, and once it's running you know it... you can see, feel, and hear it. With an electric, all you have to do is bump the throttle stick...
Someday I may try glow power, but today I feel no desire to do so.
Well, I fly glow right now, and I'm currently building a small electric foamie with a brushless & LiPo setup, because I want to have a small, clean, quiet, park flyer. This will easily cost me $100 more than nitro plane of similar size and performance. Cost for the foamie... $70 for the brushless motor, $70 for the brushless ESC, and $45 for
one LiPo pack... after I get it put together, setup, and maidened, I'll likely buy 2 more batt packs so I can fly 3 flights w/o waiting an hour to recharge the LiPos in between. So the initial cost of this power setup is $185, and it will hit $275 if I want to get 3 flights in an hour. Compare this to a good .15 to .25 sized nitro engine for about $70, and a years supply of nitro, say 10 gallons for this size plane, at $7.50 a gallon, that's $145 total...