Well all of your choices would work, just goes to personal preference right now. I have a Genesis ARF with an AXI 5330/F3A and it flies great. I have seen the E-Angel's shadow fly as well and it's a beautiful airplane! Although... all the Shadows are. You won't go wrong with any of those planes listed.

As far as the batteries go. There are a couple of things at play here actually. When e-pattern started it was necessary to use the 8000 mah packs as the C ratings were relatively low. The battery technology wasn't where it is today, and with the higher capacity you were able to draw the 60-65 amps the motors were pulling. Also, there wasn't much experience as to how much was really needed, so bigger is always better right?

With the batteries we have today, the Flight Power Evos, PolyQuests, and Thunder Powers (didn't mention Kokam because they really don't have a pack that's the right capacity or weight yet, but it's coming I hear) the battery ratings are 12-20C for max cont. and much higher burst ratings... so that packs can be smaller in capacity. But how small? It all depends on your application.

Right now flying the Masters sequence in 7.5-8 minutes I am seeing a usage of 2000-2400 with my Thunder Powers and 1800-2200 with my Flight Power set. I have one friend who is flying a Hacker with a set of TP 5300s and is completing the FAI P-07 at around 2000-2400 pretty regulary. This is a considerable drop in what we flew last year, and were expecting for this year. There are many theories circulating in our circles about this... but it's likely a combination of throttle management and how the throttle curve is set up.

Battery technology continues to evolve and my sets of TP ProLite 5S3P 6000s were the best avail from TP for size and weight about this time last year when i bought them... four or five months later we got the 5S4P 5300 that were almost 5 ounces lighter per set of two than what I had. Whatever you buy now will likely be updated soon with batteries... but if it works for your application, who cares?

Since you are asking about TPs, a couple sets of the 5S4P 5300s will work great with the AXI and any of the planes you choose. As far as the other batteries though... the Flight Powers are no slouch and I'm sure there wil be adapter cables for the balancers out soon. I should have a set by next week to try out.

With all that said, welcome to the dark side, you'll never go back!

Tom Messer