$1000 in batteries to fly a 40%? Riiiiight. I'm looking at that "electric" site (okay I can say it, checking out RCGroups) and the owner, who set up a Funtana 90 (well, well, below the weight of a 40%) is using two 5S3P packs to fly it. Out of curiousity, I went to TP's website to see how much those go for. $350 each. So you're looking at $700 just to make the prop turn. Wait, scratch that, that $700 won't make the prop turn, it'll make the motor turn. How much are those going for? Don't forget to add ESC. So now you've spent, we'll call it a total of $900 on a power package for what is advertised as a .90 size machine. I consider it a 1.20, but we get the idea. Now we're ready to go fly it all day! I won't get into charger costs because just like with gassers, our field equipment is really a one-time purchase (if done right) and is part of the game. No harm, no foul on the charger/battery bunker/wattmeter etc. The motor system you spent $900 on is ready to go.

For one flight.

I'm not saying it would be a bad flight either, I'm sure it'll be 10+ minutes of good aerobatics, cruising around, 3Ding down low, etc. You land and park the plane, then you get to sit around for over an hour waiting for the batteries to cool and putting them through a 1C charge. Hope you brought something else to fly or a CD player. What's the solution? More batteries of course! So for every time you would like to fly in an hour and a half span, that'll be another $700. All this to fly a Funtana. Do we really want to get into flying a 120", 35lb+ unlimited aerobat? You have a $1600 system to fly a Funtana 90. Guess what $1350 bought for my 2.6M Extra. It's made in Tucson. I can fly four times in a row (stopping to add gas only) for a little under $3 worth of pump gas between charges on my ($20) ignition battery.

I'm not bagging on electrics!!! They really are the future but they aren't the solution for everything that's flying at this time. Eventually their prices will come down and there will no longer be a reason to not use them. Macr0t0r said it very well, it's okay to like electrics while admitting that the technology is still being perfected. I'm heading out to the field today and I'm bringing my new warmliner glider with me. I just tested it out yesterday - it will hit terminal velocity going straight up and is a real kick to fly. However, when I bring my Extra with me, I have a few gallons of gas in the trailer just begging to be burned.

Oh, as far as the AMA mag? I thought this month's was actually pretty good. The construction articles always have the ugliest planes (RCModeler used to have the best articles) but this month I actually read just about the entire mag.