Ignition consists of a glow plug and onboard battery. It must have the plug hot @ idle to be reliable, will run above idle w/o power, I just leave it on while running. I did not want to spend big bucks for onboard glow so I made a 1.2v 4500mah battery from Sanyo cells (cost about 8 bucks) gives 1.5hrs+ flying time. gas/glow I feel is the only practical way to go with this engine unless you need a 5.5lb engine.