Ha! You guys are hilarious. I never considered the “paper towel and windex” cost. While I suppose it is not zero, $278 seems a little much
Truth be told I use one paper towel per wipe down and often reuse that one a number of times. I love those heavy blue “garage/shop” paper towels, they last forever. I don’t think I have gone through one roll of those the whole time I have owned the bird.
Also, if you want to do some comparisons, I have spent about $120 on fuel, according to my pile of receipts. Fuel now costs me about $12 a gallon but was closer to $10 once upon a time. On top of that I have broken exactly one (1) tail boom since I started flying in 1996, lost one (1) Z link, lost one (1) mixing arm, and stripped one (1) set of servo gears. Those are the only parts I have ever had to replace from wear or breakage. The white blades you see in the flying AH-6 shots are the original blades that came in the box. I could even still strap on the original canopy if I wanted to. I don’t know how many times I have put that thing into the concrete or some tree over the years, but reading the Corona crash damage lists make my wallet tighten up just a little more
I won’t even poke at the idea of “what if” I had gone with a brushless electric LMH running on a small collection of seven cell Sanyo HRSC 2600 mah NiMh packs charged up on one (or two!) computer delta peak charges, back in 1996…
All that aside, I need to decide what I want to do at this point for the years to come. Will I still be flying the LMH in another 7 years, maybe. If I have not moved on to something else will I fly a similar amount as in the past, probably. That said, I stand to spend $140 - $200 on a gas solution, depending if I go with the $20 rebuild or the $90 upgrade and how much fuel costs over the next 7 years. The electric solution will run me some $400+ for similar performance over the next 7 years. Price wise, the electrics don’t even compare. The lure of electric is that they are clean, they are quiet, and they are convenient. All of these things appeal to me greatly and are why they may be worth the big bucks. The big plus for the gas side of things is that it is quite cheep in comparison.
Unfortunately at this stage in my life, I think the fact that I sometimes check the seminar schedules to see which ones offer free pizza so I can both eat and pay the rent while I try and finish up my research has pretty much eliminated the electric option. Perhaps after I have some sort of job and the paychecks reputedly associated there to, other options will open up. Truth be told, if I had the cash to drop on an electric setup right now I probably would. If nothing else I would never have to fiddle endlessly with the motor to keep it running right
Thanks for all of your input and humor,
Spiro