RE: cost per flight hour vs. glow
Hello.
This type of comparison always brings up a lot of thoughts and opinions.
This is my experience, after 4 years of flying 2m electric planes.
So far I have had a total of 11 sets of 10s batteries, 4 different makes.
NONE of the packs have exceeded 100 flights, most have died after about 50.
One pack is brand new, less than 10 flights, excellent performance this far.
Two packs have 30 and 31 flights, still reasonable performance, but noticeable down from new.
One pack is at 81 flights, this is actually an older pack without balancing plugs, still going ok.
All other packs have failed.
In my opinion, there is just no point in comparing cost per flight.
If you want to fly electric, it has to be for other reasons then to save money.
(But then again, if you wanted to save money, you would not be flying RC models at all, certainly not Pattern.)
On the up-side, batteries are improving all the time, and technology is changing. I am very curious about the A123's.
And as Joe wrote earlier (post #3), to make electric flight practical, you need a lot of batteries and chargers, and the batteries need to have sufficient capacity. Two battery packs and one charger simply is not going to do it.
Just my opinion/experience.
Your mileage may differ.
Magne