With current setups I'm not so sure that 4350 mah packs are a practical solution. I had to use a 4350 mah pack in 2007 in order to make my Integral make weight. (it did, but just barely ...) Since then I've been able to slowly get my plane's weight down to the point where I can use a 5350 mah pack and still make weight, (again, just barely ...) and with these packs It looks like I can fly an entire season. However, I didn't get much more than 50 flights out of the 4350 mah packs.

Now, if the masters pattern was shortened to to match the length of the f3a patterns, things might be different. Also, if speed controller efficiencies, and motor / prop combination efficiencies improve, then maybe the 4350 mah packs will start to look good again. I figure I'd need to see about a 15% overal improvement in efficiency for this to happen.

All of this brings me to another thought. It seems that the primary areguments here is that the rules are currently biased against electrics, and that glow powered setups have an inherent advantage in they appear to have a little bit of design margin left that the electric setups don't seem to have.

Given this, would things be more evenly matched if the masters schedule was shortened so that using a 4350 mah pack becomes something practical to consider? I'm thinking that this simple change would be equivalent to giving electrics a 3 ounce or so margin that would make them more functionally equivalent to glow powered setups. Another unique benefit is that at no time will either glow, or electric systems gain or lose any sort of performance advantage. Everything stays exactly as it is, except that now I (and others ..) won't have to worry so much about making weight at the Nats.