On avg. how much are you spending per month in hobby fuel? I ask so i know what im getting myself into.

That all depends on how much you fly. One gallon is 128 oz. Figure 8 oz per flight will give you 16 flights. Now if you fly 2 flights per day that will give you 8 days worth of flying. Glow fuel costs vary depending on where you buy it. $12-$20 per gallon is pretty average. So with that you can get an idea of how much it's going to cost.

Now I've had days where I have got through more than a gallon of fuel a day. I fly 15% Cool Power and I usually pay ~$18/gallon. So the costs can add up quickly. This is one of the many reasons why gas powered engines are so popular. Glow fuel at $18/gallon compared to gasoline at $3/gallon. No brainer there!!! This is why I'm starting to get more gas powered planes. And with smaller gas engines not being available it's becoming a better option all the time.

I hope this helps give you an idea of what it's going to cost you.

Ken

Idont wanna think about it .

How much do you spend on beer when you play golf? How much does ammo cost at the gun club? Fuel is just a necessary expense to the hobby.

Iplan on buying bulk. Get in with a group of guys (who you can trust) and 15% nitro should be around $13 a gallon. A $5/gallon savings from the LHS.

i gripe more about buying hardware for the planes than I do the fuel.. fuel is what allows the fun stuff to happen!!

Ifeel an empty jug is just a sign of accomplishment. Very satisfying.

In Himmel mann hat kein Bier,
Deshalb trinken wir es hier.
Und wenn wir nicht mehr hier,
Unsere Freunden werden trinken alle Bier.

[In heaven there is no beer.
That's why we drink it here.
And when we're no longer here,
Our freinds will be drinking all the beer]

Old drinking song from my HS days in Munich. Where did you learn it?

Tom

Nice signature. Let me guess, your favorite color is red?

Novel, That is something mein opa tought me. He is from Hamburg.

Oh how I would love to Munich for Oktoberfest. That is one perk of living in Milwaukee is that this city was populated by a majority of German Immigrants. This is the city flowing with beer, good wurst, and damn good German restaurants such as Maders, Carl Rashes, Schwabenhauf "which I will have my wedding reception there". Just a short drive from work is Usingers sausage. On the end of the block by Usingers is a Haufbrau Haus. Once a year on the summerfest grounds by the lake front is our version of Oktoberfest. If your in the area, its well worth going there.

rcken, after looking at your post, i checked on towers site and I did not know that there were 20cc engines for fixed wings. I know they have 20cc for helis which fits roughly in the 50 size class. So, I assume that the DLE 20cc will fit roughly in the 60-70 class?

The 20 cc is more of a replacement for 120 size planes, but it won't fit on all planes of that size. That's the biggest problem with the smaller gas engines, they can be a bit "clunky"and won't fit in all planes. Some slim fuselages, or small cowl areas, won't accommodate a gas engine.

Ken

I had something more like a larger ultra stick that can fit a 20cc and be small enough to fit in my Nissan Sentra.

That would work indeed. And like I said above, the cost of gas is much easier on the wallet than glow fuel is!

Ken

Sehr gut.

Our club buys from S&W in a 55 gallon drum. Cost with shipping is about 9.00 gallon. Will mix it any way you want. We use 15% full Syn.

When thinking about a gas conversion, remember that gasoline doesn't produce the power that methanol and nitro will for the given displacement. I recently flew a Saito 120 Four Stroke that had been converted to gas, and there was a significant performance gap. But as you get into larger planes, the cost of fuel becomes prohibitive, so its a tradeoff.

Interestingly enough, I find my DLE-55 burns about 1 oz of fuel a minute during a normal flight. Lately I've been using about 1 gallon of gas a month. Similarly, my .46 two stoke and .91 four stroke glow motors burn about 1 oz of fuel a minute. When I was flying those exclusively, I was buying about 1 gallon a month. Don't know if that says more about me or performance. But I've seen a huge reduction in my fuel budget by spending a lot more on my plane! I figure the savings over the next 10 years will eventually justify the expense.

Brad

Also depends on what planes I'm flying on any given day plus how much I'm flying. I had two planes out last week, one a pattern plane and one an Extra, both with YS 1.20s in them, I can get two days {sometimes less} per gallon of fuel, 15% Wild Cat. I do have a nice small gas engine but it is no longer made or imported, the RCS 1.40 that is about the same size as a glow engine, very high performance little gas engine though. There are several small gassers that have just been hitting the market. I haven't seen any of them at the field yet so can't say how well they run but if you look in the gas engine forum you can read up on them.

There are even a couple of gas powered 26cc trainers showing up in the ads. A bit larger than the 40 trainer, but it is possible to go straight into training with gas and never use glow fuel. The bigger trainer should be more stable and not really that much more money(~$400 combo) when the glow support equipment is factored in.

There is a couple of other drawbacks with gas, at least where I live all gas is 10% EtOH, I really dont know how that is going to affect a model airplane. The other thing is the smell, I always spill glow fuel in my hands, so I will be smelling awful after each day at the field, not to mention ths smell of my truck after the planes have being there.
I also feel more at ease with the small risk of combustion of glow vs gas.
just my 2 cents.

I actually like both glow and gas. I have one 50cc plane and just got another because I like that size enough to do so. BUT I have another 12 planes that run on glow and all at this time are 4 strokers. To me the glow fuel is just a necessity to enjoy the hobby, as much as fueling up my car. I get my 15% Cool Power or Omega from a big LHS in Beaverton, OR, and they sell it pretty cheap plus give a buck off each gallon if you buy a case (4 gallons and can be mixed %'s)...it comes out just $15 per gal. I think I use about 15 gallons per year. That is just about $225 per year for glow fuel. Geez, that's not much for the amount and frequency of pure enjoyment I get out of this hobby. And nothing smell as good as glow fuel exhaust early on a morning at the field...well, except for bacon frying and coffee brewing! Jon

If you are concerned about tje cost of fuel, this activity is too expensive for your bank account.

On Jet fuel, I only spend about $25 a month. On gas(not glow) I spend about the same amount. I don't do glow anymore. I don't do electric, but the batteries have a cycle limit, or number of flights. Take the cost of the battery divided by the cycles, and you will have a cost of per flight. If you are worried about fuel cost, as a beginner, you should worry more how many planes will you wreck to learn and their cost replacement. Get a simulator to cut that cost down. Get a worthy instructor too. Not all helpers at the field are good instructors, but they try.

It also depends on the amount of nitro one burns and the type of performance one needs out of the power plant. For example, YS170 4 stroke used in Pattern and Scale really comes alive on 30% heli blend which costs around 30$/gallon. The YS170 uses about 20 ozs of fuel per 10 minute flight, so that gallon lasts 6 flights more or less.

I use an SAP180 2 stroke gasoline engine on pipe in my pattern plane rather than a YS170 4 stroke. The same 10 minute flight only uses about 6 ozs of gasoline and oil or around 21 flights at 10 minutes each per gallon. A 5 gallon container of gasoline and oil costs about $22 (14$ for gas and 8$ for oil). The 5 gallons of gas mix will last about 105, 10 minute flights, which is a pretty good amount of flying

Doing the math, the YS will runabout 5-6 hours on 5 gallons of 30% and cost around 150$ (exclude overhauls for the moment). The SAP180 will run about 18 hours on the 5 gallons of gasoline/oil mix and cost $22.

Convert everything to a common length of operation time of lets say, 18 hours, and you will see that the YS will cost around 450$ for 18 hours and the SAP will cost around 22$, or about 1/20. Of course this is the most extreme case and most people don't run a YS170.

Powerwise, the YS holds a slight edge at about 4 1/4 HP versus 4 HP for the piped SAP.

Hope that helps put it in perspective. Lower cost glow fuel will cost proportionately less to operate than the YS but will range from 8X to 20X what gasoline operation in this size range will cost. If you fly 300 flights per year, cost difference will be $500-$1000 annualy. That's not peanuts!!

Im not worried about the cost, Im just curious to what the general consensus is. This hobby allows me to fulfill my dream of flying, and its how i can afford to fly.

The reason I am asking is that this winter I will be building a 40 sized trainer and to get an idea on what i should budget for fuel. My LHS has 10% for about 15-17 per gallon. As rcken earlier stated that 128oz/8oz is 16 tanks per gallon. with a 15 min flight, a gallon will last for 240 min or 4 hours per gallon. My thinking is when the weather gets warmer, I want to be out and fly, and lets say i go through a gallon a week, that would be roughly 60 to 68 per month. I know that isnt bad, with roughly 16 hours per month of flying time, but i must be cautious with my money. I have student loans and a wedding to save up for.

Now with learning about 15cc sized engines, I may look into a 60+ sized bird to fit it into. That is if i can get it to fit in my small Nissan Sentra GXE. At that point I can fly my hearts desire and not have much of an impact on the wallet.

I understand with gas engines I wont get the same power to weight ratio. My goal in this hobby is to fly scale and smooth aerobatics. I am not interested in 3D flight. So I think that gas would be great for scale flight.

I hope this helps make more sense of my situation.

Get married, and the planes go away!