To ChuckW's remark about the LiPo batteries.... i've heard stories from several veteran fliers about someone inadvertantly mismatching electronics and overloading them on an electric plane (a newbie to electrics, not necessarily flying, who basically was drawing WAY too much current due some obscure reason I didn't quite get; I don't know electrics or their intricacies...). The end result is that the plane burned itself into a puddle of carbonized goo and the LiPo battery transformed itself into a "spark grenade" [:@] that left a 10' burn ring at the end of the field. Apparently when those things get into "overload" mode, they swell up like balloons and then BANG!!!! they start tossing flaming bits of crud everywhere. Not cool in a "severe" fire zone area [:'(]

But I also heard it was a heck of a visual object lesson for all the other electric fliers that day and that within 5 minutes after the "ring of fire" EVERYONE had a multimeter out and was checking every wire, connection, and the min/max loads across every part their planes' system!

I have managed to burn the SNOT out of my fingers when they accidentally touched the muffler on a .60 glow that I didn't realize had just been running just 5 minutes before.... that was a stupid "hot stove" lesson that I don't plan to repeat [:@] but it wasn't any worse of a burn than I've gotten from a car's manifold/cat when I had to make some quick emergency repairs on my sis-in-law's MG while it was stranded in a "not so great" neighborhood of Atlanta. It still wasn't hot enough to start a fire even if you pressed dry brush/prarie grass up against it. (...but it did hurt like a BOOGER and I sure as heck wouldn't do it on purpose!!!!!!!![:@] )