Hello Steelyphil,


Most of the engines used in this hobby are glow engines, although most of the large scale airplanes use gasoline engines.


Glow engines use glow fuel and have glow plugs to ignite the fuel air mixture. A true gasoline engine is just like the engine in your car and uses a spark plug and requires a source of ignition.


You can find a [link=http://www.hooked-on-rc-airplanes.com/rc-gas-engines.html] more in depth comparison of gas engines vs glow here here.[/link]


But ya, you can hear both gas or glow engines no matter how high they are.


Sometimes its hard to hear a four stroke engine at idle at high altitude.

Engines are by far louder than electric motors.

Electric motors with gearboxes are noisier than electric motors directly coupled to the propeller such as a brushless outrunner motor. Brushless outrunners are very quiet.


As far as efficiency? Gas motors are more fuel efficient than Nitro engines.

And electic motors are far more efficient in general than IC engines.

As far as money goes, you won't need to spend any money on fuel with eletrric. But you do have to fork out the doe for the batteries, charger, etc.


Unless you're in love with the whole concept of an IC engines powering your airplane, electric is probably the way to go. Since brushless motors and Li-Po batteries came out over the past few years, electric airplanes have become just as powerful as glow planes.


I happen to be one of those people in love with the concept of an REAL IC engine so I would rather have a glow engine. But if I were to choose between electric and glow purely based on convenience electric is much easier to take care of. No engine to tune, no glow plugs to go bad, no oily mess, no buying fuel...


So I guess its a matter of taste more or less. I think both glow and electric planes have pretty much equal pros and cons. That is just my opinion.

Hope this helps,


Matt

I hope this helps...