As gboulton mentioned, "Charger, cables, extra battery pack(s), then I have to stand around between flights while charging (for anywhere from 10 minutes to hours, depending)...and all that stuff NEVER seems to go box into the tool box neatly. "< Say you really want to go electric. That means the battery pack in the plane has to run the motor as well as the receiver. You might get 8 minutes out of the battery pack before the prop quits turning. Now you land. Then do you pull the pack and plunk it on a quick charger? Even then you are proably looking at about 1/2 hour before its charged up again. Or you can buy spare packs and just replace them in between flights. Better make sure that they are all charged up the night before you go flying. A standard training day at our club consists of six 10 minute air time flights. After that the Tx. batterys may be getting low. To do this on e power requires 6 battery packs or a combination of a few packs, a good charger, and an organized recharging system in between flights. Thats provided that there is 110 volt power at your field or a good 12 volt source. Too much trouble for me to bother with. With glow fuel you just refill after you land and you are good to go again. As you might guess, my opinion is that I think glow power is the way to go for training. Age wise, I started teaching my son when he was 8 and he flys all my planes just fine. The interest has to be there and the attitude that they want to see the plane keep flying. Not like some of the kids attitudes that "it would look cool to see it crash!". What also helps is that if your son can also bring a friend out to the field and they can take turns flying. It gives both the kids a common ground to talk about after so to speak. [8D]