Well some of you may know me off the boat forums but soon after thinking that air is easier to find than water i thought why not get started in rc planes!!!

It all started with a trip to Jaycar (like radio shack for you americans) and there i saw for 50 bucks a small model plane that was constructed of expanded polystyrene foam and had 2 props/motors (lowering the rpm of one motor to steer the plane) and to top it off it ran of a lipo that once charged for 20 mins - would yield 10 mins of flight time...I couldnt resist.

So when i got it home, charged it and flew it i was hooked - right from then and there i wanted to get into rc planes.

Soooooooooooooo...here goes a barrage of questions

With planes i understand there are 2 main forms of propultion in terms of electric - brushless and brushed dc, for costs sake im going to be starting with brushed and my "style" of rc planes atm the is in the smallish domain - ie. indoor rc up to 23" wing span.

Having said that i also know that the plane will need a tranmitter and reciver :P and batteries aswell as an esc (to suit the motor type, which in this case is brushed). And from my understanding it would be best to have a 4 channel reciver/transmitter - one for motor, rudder, elevator and arelons, BUT depending on the cost i may fall back to a 3 channel setup which then i was wondering if it would be best to have the motor (obivosly), the rudder and elevator or to swap the elevator for the arelons? im new so i dont have a clue but my technical know how points me in the direction of using the elevator appossed to the arelons (if i had a choice).

and secondly is batteries - are lipo "that much better" that i should forget about nimh or could they still be a consideration?

I will be building my own planes (half the fun of flying) and i will be making my esc becuase im familar with my electronics and the esc is for a brushed motor so it easy to make any way (compared to a sensorless bldc esc :0)

Thanks in advance guys.

PS - and yes thsi is a repost from the q and a section - i didnt get any replys after a couple of days :'(