Hi Bushpilot, welcome to RCU! You'll enjoy it here.

RE LiPo charger: Youll need a dedicated lipo charger to charge your lipo packs. Lipos require a complex charging algorithm from a charger and an ordinary NiMH or NiCad charger does not have this. There are plenty lipo chargers on the market these days with all the bells and whistles. Get one that suits your needs and you should be fine. For some interresting reading on electric flight, go read the Amp'ed articles in the magazine section written by Gregg Covey.

As for the receiver packs, some people are changing over to LiPo packs for their recievers and servos but it does require either a regulator to bring the voltage down from 7.2V to 5/6V. Or you need to get the new generation recievers and servos that are LiPo compatible. The second option is not that popular yet(expensive) but many people are using 2cell lipos with voltage regulators to power their receivers. Obviously a seperate receiver pack is not required on EP planes because of the BEC most ESC's have.

Hope this helps.

Cheers and good luck!