ORIGINAL: fw190
I am no expert but have gone through it with my 3D helis. Higher voltage can mean higher efficiency while extending the life of your batteries. How many minutes of flight time are you getting on the A123? I ran a 10sA123 on a heli and I get around 4 min max at full power, drawing 2200 from the packs. A123s are great but Lipo is still king when it comes to power and weight. I rebuilt all my A123s to RX packs and they are working great on my warbirds.
with throttle management, I can squeeze about 6 minutes tops... but you can bet the plane is circling the field when I am that far out on the timer.
I understand about the Lipo's. I didn't want to worry about the over-charge, discharge, volatility and generally slow recharge times. Plus, I would have to design an easy-to-access hatch for removal of Lipo packs and I would have to haul around several packs to get several flights in at the field without burning up the entire day. The A123's allow me to re-charge the packs in the plane over the course of about 35 minutes so I can get a couple of flights every hour. I usually don't fly more than a couple of hours anyway so four flights works just fine for me.