RE: cost per flight hour vs. glow
So far I have 3 packs: 2- Thunder Power 5300 Pro-Lite packs that I bought for about $625 per set and one Flight Power 5350 matched set that I bought for $535. The Thunder Power packs have 105 and 110 cycles on them and are still very strong. If there is any degradation, it is not enough to affect performance. My Flight Power pack has about 65 cycles and is still very strong as well. I have only 1 Thunder Power 1010 charger and the 210 balancer and I have always charged the packs together in series as 10S. So far my flight costs have been:
TP pack 1 $625/110 = $5.68 per flight
TP pack 2 $625/105 = $5.95 per flight
FP Pack $535/65 = $8.23 per flight
These costs are if I threw the batteries out right now and of course that won't happen. The cost per flight is constantly going down as the cycles go up. Also, you must figure in that I have spent $0.00 on motor maintenance so far and spent another $0.00 on airframe maintenance due to the lack of vibration. The plane has only some minor hangar rash from me but is otherwise in brand new condition. You have to consider the increased longevity of the airframe too when you look at costs of electric vs. glow.
That said, you still cannot make a dollar for dollar comparison for glow vs. electric. Glow is still cheaper. It's getting closer but they are not equal.....yet