Thanks for your replies guys.

@ Martin: I must admit to constantly considering going turbine, but will fly the DS94/Lehner on 12 lipos and 60A, say 2.5kW first! I'm selling off all my 90mm EDFs as they are really too small to be exciting any more. However, I do have a pair of 90mm Schubis and Lehners for 9s to use up, so should be able to stick 3.5kW or so into a big (say 76" long therefore not huge but big enough!) Meteor or Sea Vixen within a short period of time. The MiG 19 is still under consideration for the DS94 and I've schemed the ducting and lipo installation, but I'm also drawn back to the Gnat at 1/5th scale, a tad bigger than the Carpenter one.

@ Bob: I agree with you on batteries and prices. The motors and fan units last for ever, so all we need is for lipos to drop in price to nickel levels, and it'll be much better. Regarding numbers of flights per session, I've been taking six 6s packs along to fly my 90mm EDFs which use 6s, and getting 8 flights with a couple of re-charges, so have been reasonably happy with that. Twenty turbine flights indicates that you must have a vehicle big enough to carry two 5-gallon drums of fuel!! Over here that'd be £50 in kerosene, but Jet A1 would be 60% of that cost - if I didn't have to drive 60 miles to buy it. My car would have problems fitting one 5-gall drum inside along with the model, though I guess a bunch of 1 gall containers in the footwells would work out.

@ Graham: I think that you're right about the lack of turbine flyers near me. A pity, as I fly off the runways at the old RAF Chivenor two miles from my house! There are some small private airfields locally, but I suspect they don't have avtur as they're into Cessnas and microlights, though there might be a chopper or two. I'll have to pop along to an event at Westonzoyland sometime and have a nosey. I did attend one of Dick Spreadbury's Classic Jets events a couple of years ago and had a great time there with my Bandito and Vector, but it was a 400 mile round trip from here. The bottom line is that I live in the wrong area!!

One attraction of lipos which makes them attractive despite their expense is that the same packs will fly a 1/4 scale aerobatic bipe as will fly a 2.5kW EDF, and that bit of versatility is worth having. You can get either 20mins with the bipe, or 10 min with an EDF, either way not a bad way to enjoy some flying. And the packs are a lot less bulky than cans of juice!

That being said, I'll still lust after a turbine!

Best regards

Gordon