A small percentile compared with numbers of those who don't.

Logic has nothing to do with it. As the originator intended gauging by his footer, this is one of the half dozen questions which ALWAYS end up in a circular emotional argument. eg: electric vs gas, mode 1 vs mode 2, castor vs synthetic, etc. Sit back and watch the fireworks as merry go round goes around and around.

In a lot of cases, the "all or nothing" feel is a consequence of the throttle being too linear. Prop thrust is proportional to rpm squared. Doubling the rpm quadruples the thrust.
Measure "half throttle" rpm on a gas or glow plane and the rpm will be much higher than half of the full throttle rpm. This non linearity of rpm results in nearly linear thrust because of the prop's exponential nature.
Some radios have the option of using "reverse exponential" on the throttle channel to give the throttle of an electric plane a more linear feel. Some ESCs may have reverse expo built in.

ok i didnt read every ones reply and if i change the supject a little im very sorry...

With electric you have only5-10 min flights and constanly have to recharge batteries with glow/gas you just bring fuel and fly for almost 30 min. i personly like electric to go and fly and you dont have to bring half your tool box to get the plane running right.(i bring 3battery packs when flying my electric pt-17 time seems to fly with electrics)(get it FLY haha)im just getting into glow now and i like it alot the only thing with glow is the mess that forms when using them(gas spilling, oil ect.) over all i like them both the same for diffenet things.

Since RC modeling is all about emulating full size aircreft, when they start making full size planes electric I might start building and flying electric.

Get ready then

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...ctplane11.html

-John

I timed one of my flights on my Ultrafly Outrage and I flew it for 16 minutes before the ESC did the low battery cutout. This was with a 900 mah 3-S Thunderpower li-po powering a e-flite 370 outrunner 1050 KV motor and APC 8x3.7 electric prop. Generally I land because I'm tired of flying it, not because the battery is dead. I was flying it normally, not milking it for maximum flight time, but I never do use full throttle all the time, even with glow engines.

Electric is getting more reliable, cost effective and affordable all the time. 5S packs for Pattern planes have gone from $400-500 a piece to about $200 a piece in the last year alone. Packs have gone from yielding 50 flights (maybe) to reliably providing 150 flights if you buy from the right people (ie Falcon, Thinderpower). Also, Fromeco (www.Fromeco.org) has raised the bar for Litium Ion performance by providing flight packs (7.4V) at roughly haf the cost of Duralite and the other competitors and the packs have real punch. With a good Triton Charger you can have a relatively safe, reliable lithium Ion system to replace your NiCads that will provide WAY more flights per charge, excellent performance under a load and good battery life.

The downside of electric powered flight is still the cost of the packs (even though prices are falling fast). plus, to ensure battery life you need good chargers, balancers and you really need to do your homework on how to handle the batteries to optimize lifesapn. With a 10-13 pound plane you could easily spend $2000 on chargers, balancers, voltage/amp testers and batteries. If you want to stay up with the technology, you are going to have to spend some money.

As far as safety, yes Lithium is volatile.. BUT, there are exponentially more people using Lithium batteries now than there were 1 year ago, and with the chargers that are on the market today they have become very safe and reliable to use. Stay tuned, it wont be long before out Lithium packs will start coming in a container like a Duracell battery. That will make them a lot safer and will really open up the market and drop the prices down.

As far as performance.... Its a wash. If you are willing to spend the money on quality equipment you can get performance equal to or even better than liquid fuel with electric power.

From the AMA magazine, about 1/3 of the pattern flyers and about 1/2 of the top ten pattern flyers are flying electric planes. I don't think it's because they are a bunch of tree hugging enviromentalists.

I would say those numbers are pretty accurate. I was at a contest this weekend and 2 of the top 10 US pattern flyers were there and they are both flying electric. I know Chip and Jason are also electric now, Im betting most if not all of them are electric by now.

Pattern likes electric because it allows you to fly a slower and more constant speed with tremendous authority. That allows you more time to setup and draw your maneuver geometry more precisely. You just cant fly that slowly with a liquid fuel plane. You can swing a MUCH larger prop with an electric. A typical electric swings a 21-22" prop, a comparable glow swings an 18" prop.

OK, the REAL difference between electric & glow power is the number of fingers you have missing....

[:@]

Well from what I see out there now........, You need some cleaner and rags for one,
the other a few batteries and or charger... So it makes it a bit faster to leave dodge