First of all, gratz ken.

Now...i think Ken's original point is one that bears repeating...many many many times.

You simply do NOT have to spend a truckload of money in this hobby to have an ABSOLUTE blast. Sure...a great big Extra might have a high 'cool factor', and a 2 year scratch build is certainly an accomplishment worthy of genuine pride...but FUN can be had on nearly ANY budget.

CGR, you mentioned flying indoors this winter...let me share a little story with ya.

This past winter, our indoor club came up with an activity that provided us with more howls of laughter, trash talking, ribbing, and genuine FUN than I've had in the past 5 years.

And we did it for < $150 per person, all up, ready to go.

A bunch of us bought Parkzone Embers for "lazy indoor tooling around". After a couple of indoor sessions, "someone" had this crazy idea. LET'S HAVE EMBER PYLON RACES!! A couple trash cans got moved out onto the floor for "pylons", couple of guys offered to be 'judges'...and off we went.

Within 2 weeks, I'd clipped the wings of my Ember, changed the CG. Some other guys modified the rudders a bit. Before long, a few of us bought new wings (they're < $20) and were experimenting with swept leading edges, delta wings, you name it. Our only "rule" was that the powerplant and servos had to remain stock.

We had a blast! And given the inexpensive initial cost AND repair costs/time, nobody was worried about crashes, or "aggressive" flying. I looked more forward to our 3 hours indoors each week than i had ANY trip to the field in quite a while.

Ken's point is a great one, and not to be overlooked. There are PLENTY of ways in this hobby to have an absolutely great time on VERY minimal budgets.