thanx for everyone's input. the problem i had sounded very much like FKY1000's problem. the only time when i had plugs burn out on me was whenever i flew at the beach. i dont know what it is exactly but maybe the salt in the air or something there is not making my engine happy and burning my plugs. i'm no expert on glow engines (in fact this is my first glow plane), but since i've never had this problem when not flying at the beach, i know this has something to do with it.

also, i was running too lean before. apparently my muffler bolts also came lose and introduced an air leak into the engine and that's probably how it ended up running too lean (besides the high end being set too lean). while breaking in the engine, i ran it extremely rich (as specified by the manual), and i agree that it's almost impossible to burn plugs from running to rich (at least from my experience).

so the last two times i was out flying, i set my high end slightly on the rich side, made sure all the bolts were tight and had no problems at all. (i flew at the normal flying site, not the beach).

tomorrow i'm gonna try the beach again staying at exactly the same settings and if the plugs blow again, i'll know that it's definitely something in the air at the beach (probably the salt). if it flies fine, then i'll know that it was the running too lean that was causing my plugs to burn out. or maybe i just got a couple of bad plugs..... anyway, i'm just happy the problem's gone away. hopefully.....

brian