Bud, the batteries take the cold just fine. I DID recycle one of my old 600 mAh NiCads (kept reading 524 on my voltmeter), the one on the Magic, last night. It came up fine today (550) --and that bird, with the .45 ST gets 4 16 minute flights on it.

My transmitter bat has never gotten below 9.6 in four to five hour sessions of flying. I have a backup battery for the transmitter. I ended up leaving it at home in my second radio transmitter 9both are Futaba 6EXAs). Those NiCads are amazing, cycle after cycle after cycle. They LOVE to be used. I actually got my transmitter battery to register 11.6 for the first time since I've had it (for a year) last week. Generally it begins sessions with an 11.4 reading.

I have taken to painting the insides of my canopies. I had a Dalmatian dog under the canopy of my UCD .60. Kids loved it, but I crashed the bird and rebuilt the scheme WITHOUT the Dalmation. Ah, well.... If you fly, you're gonna crash sooner or later. As someone said, I don't crash any more. I don't crash less, either.

But, holy smoley, don't be a cold weather flying wuss and give up flying because of snow or cold. And you can make a radio "glove" to keep your hands warm for about 7 bucks.

Jack