Jeff, between my son and myself, we have three Impulse 900 mil packs and one TP 730 mil pack. With the 900 mil pack, we get about nine minutes of mostly hovering, about 15 minutes if doing mostly slow things like harriers. And yes, the 9 inch prop has plenty of punch out of a hover or harrier. I spent about ten minutes hovering today, playing with the cut down 10X3.8 prop, first cut to nine inches, then cut to 8 3/4 inches. At 8 3/4 inches, it is stating to act like the standard 9X3.8 prop. The only thing we have found that the Reflection doesn't do really well with the 9X3.8 is funnel. It does the manuever quite well, really pretty in fact, but after the first turn or two it slowly starts drifting backwards toward the floor. The only way to cure that will be to make a much lighter Reflection, in the 8 to 9 ounce range. Then it will be an indoor only airplane.
All foamys will break if they hit a concrete floor very hard. My son crashed his Reflection into the concrete the other day from about five feet up, full throttle. It wasn't pretty, but about an hour later he had it flying again, and he says it flys just as good as before. There are other foamys that probably fly as good as the Reflection, but they cost a lot more than $25 and I would like to see any of them crash straight into concrete, full throttle, from five feet up and fly again emmediatly.