After some 25 years, I'm getting back into rc ac. Years ago, everything was glow, I can't believe how things have changed. Hours of research has only prompted more questions.

For x-mas, i got an e-flite mustang(long story). Got me fired up. However at 30-40 mph, flites in the house where very short!!. Dying to fly something, I bought an e-flite blade cx heli. Never flew one before. My wife thinks I've lost it and my dog thinks its dinner. But I'm having a ball.

As i pursue this fascininating hobby, I'm not sure sure which way to go. Again gas/nitro etc., or electric. I kown there are pro's and con's. regarding each.

I don't wish to encourage any arguments here. ANY and ALL opinions will be welcombed.

thanx,
harmsway

I say if you have a local flying club and the money go with glow i love it personally.Just comes down to which you like better.

Electrics performance now have come very close to gas ones nowadays, cost wise same as gas ones or even more when going brushless and lipo batteries and top of the line gear. Depending on your state laws, here in California, there are restrictions on gas powered models, so many would go electric to avoid the hassle of getting insurance and flying only on designated areas with the club.

I will let you in on a very important secret as long as you promise not to tell anyone... you don't have to chose. It is actually possible to own and fly both electric and glow aircraft without having to select only one or the other.

Electric flight is quiet and convenient, and can be done indoors when the weather is bad. Sitting around and watching your flight packs recharge is wildly frustrating, however.

Glow powered flight is great outdoors even when it's a bit too windy for electric aircraft, and glow power is less expensive and more reliable than ever before. You will need a chartered flying field, however, and some paper towls to fly glow aircraft.

Buy both, fly both is my advice. Good luck and good shopping!

P.S. - eHobbies.com has the Thunder Tiger Pegasus .40 super combo on sale for $219.99

http://www.ehobbies.com/ttr4556-f12.html

You'll be hard pressed to find a better deal on a complete glow trainer package!

After years of flying glow, I jumped into electric flying with both feet. I recently completed a .60 glow equivilent scratch built Stephens Akro, plans by Brad Sheppard. It's powered by an e-flite power 60 brushless outrunner, Castle Creations HV85 ESC, and Thunder Power Extreme 4500mAh 6-s lipo batterys. A separate UBEC eliminates the need for a separate reciever battery.
As far as I know, the only downside is that those batterys cost about $280 each. OUCH!!! I haven't had enough experience to know for sure how long these batteries will last but if they last 280 flights, that would be about a buck a flight, about the same as 8 ounces of glow fuel.
On the other hand, I can build a second .60 size plane or even a whole fleet of them and I won't have to re-buy those batteries, since I can only fly one plane at a time anyway.
It's nice to not have to wipe goo off of your plane after you are through flying and my wife doesn't mind these planes being in the house. Also, I try not to gloat when other people's glow planes flame out on the runway.

About 1/3 of the pattern flyers and 1/2 of the world's top ten pattern flyers have switched to electric. I don't think it's because they are a bunch of tree-huggers trying to make a politically correct statement.

I am now going to go fully electric for bigger planes of 40 sized to 40cc. The main thing that hurts going EP that big will be batteries. I find EP at 25-40 sized for sport flying is not too painful. Once you move to an EP set up of 6S, the finance part really starts to show. Glow is something I don't want to do anymore because I am getting lazy and am not keen on the mess. I hate to keep a gasoline plane in my apartment, she is going to really stink.

Like what BLE says, once you got it all (charger/balancer/esc/motor/batt) its over ... you can move from plane to plane. Something about cost ... if I were to get 3 big planes up ... I am planning on a Mid West CAP 232, a Composite ARF 2x2 Extra and a 74" Yak ... the cost of the power system is MUCH cheaper than glo/gas. Leaving batteries out of the equation first. 2 DA50s would set me back about USD1,200 and one YS160 another USD650. For the 3 motors & esc it can be had for only USD1,000 (inclusive mounts etc). Again this is leaving the batts aside.

I still think glo/gas is easier to handle in terms of no worries about charging your batts and waiting for it. Just fuel up and go ...

A lot of folks like to claim that electrics don't handle wind as well as glow planes. My .60 equivilent electric flies in any wind that its glow counterpart will. A more accurate statement would be that small airplanes don't handle wind very well. Most electrics, especially the ready to fly toys, are small. A 30 inch wingspan plane powered by a Cox .049 doesn't handle wind very well either.

I Cant Freakin believe you said the secret out LOUD!!!! Thats IT!! your OUT of the Brotherhood..just wait til I get the paperwork started on this..will you be sorry...I have both but I would NEVER had let out the secret...it was nice knowin ya...[X(]....Rog

B.L.E. is absolutely correct. The ability to fly in a moderate breeze is a function of size and weight, and not the power system. As for Ready-to-Fly trainer aircraft, the only electric trainer that I'm aware of that is equal to its glow counterparts in terms of stability and wind handling is the Hobbico Electristar Select RTF, which looks like an excellent trainer. The Electristar Select RTF is significantly more expensive than most glow-powered trainers its size, however, and the purchaser would still have to purchase a pair of 3000Mah NiMh packs and an appropriate charger to get the plane in the air. If a new pilot were serious about flying electric aircraft, however, the Electristar would be a terrific investment.

While there are a number of good EP trainer ARFs as well as traditional airframes that are convertible to electric power systems, until other hobby manufacturers follow Hobbico's lead, there simply aren't any other electric aircraft that are suitable to recommend to the first time pilot as a primary trainer system that would be as good and as easy to build and fly as a glow trainer.

ARF assembly, selecting an appropriate radio system, selecting an electric power system, and putting all of the components together to create a large stable electric primary trainer is beyond the capabilities of most folks coming into the sport of RC flight unless they already posses a considerable amount of modeling or R/C experience or have a significant amount of help from somebody who does have experience.

I would tell you more, but since flyinrog is having me ex-communicated I have to attend to some personal matters

Hello there, thanx very very much to all of you that replied. Input and opinions are priceless.

I'm new to this site, very happy with the responses and prompt attention. I espcially like the sense of humor which seems to be abundent.

Now, if you don't mind me picking your brains, radios? Years ago I has a Futaba system. I've been doing research. The DX7 and the JR XP 7202 have got my attention. However,now there is servo sizes. Years ago you bought a system, an airplane, put it together and went flying. No micros, minis, standard, etc. ???

Thanx again for your help
harmsway
p.s. bigedmustafa, your secret is safe with me part-mer

Harmsway - same like me, after a 20 year hiatus I came back and was shocked! Servos are smaller and planes even come from Vietnam called ARF and they cost so little! What do you want to fly? Starting there would be great.

No one can say my WM Super Chipmunk conversion is not a stable plane! I loved it when we had the maiden, was at a Fun Fly I organised, everyone watched silently as she took off. Then the heckling started "Its a DEAD STICK!", "WHERE IS THE NOISE", "ITS TOO SILENT!" ... but they all loved it as no one really bothers to fly 90 sized EP planes here. The heckling was fun as I showed them the finger as I flew!

I am some what attached to my glow planes the fuel it up and fly thing is great but I see alot of my club mates going elec and having a blast doing it.
it seems like the set up fee is about the same the lipos are getting lower in cost which is the real bottom line cost.
as for radios I would recomend getting a multi model memory programable radio so you can program and fly several models with one transmitter power doesn't matter glow or elec or servo size alot of guys fly there flat out foamy planes and there 1/5 scale planes on the same transmitter they sure have gotten better in the last 20+ years

I remember what I started out back in 80's the entry level was 15/20 sized trainers. We were buying mainly Pilot QB series kits. TT was a new engine and I never did dare to buy them, only OS for me then. EP has really taken off well ...

There is a lot to consider when choosing an electric. First and foremost is the cost. Some may say that the cost is equalivent, but I must say that if you want to do it as a hobby (fly more than one flight a day) you will need to make sure you are set up right and have the support equipment. This will cost. You can do the research because the cost varies, as it does with any part of this hobby, but moreso with electrics.

First of all, the air frame is usually a lighter one or, if you want to fly a glow to electric conversion, you must power it accordingly or build a glow kit with electric in mind, keeping it as light as possible. You have to consider the motor/battery/ESC combination, and if the ESC is capable of handling the type and quantity of servo's you are using. This is where most of the cost will come.

You definitely have to match those big three items.. motor/ESC/battery combination. The larger the motor you need the higher amperage ESC and the larger capacity battery you will need. And, if you want to fly more than once in about two hours, you will need two batteries and a charging source that can handle that high-capacity re-charge.

Do some homework with reference to buying electrics before you dive in.

I am not trying to discourage electrics, quite the contrary. I have five or six of them and love them. I also have glow airplanes, no gas yet. They are to big for my car and my town house . I only want you to be aware that there is more to it than just building an ARF and mounting an electric motor on it and expect it to fly right.

The other issue I found with Electrics is that the charge life varies with a great degree based on the ability of the pilot. Many new pilots tend to do as I did, put it up in the air and fly it like a glow. I would go to full throttle to get it off the air and keep it there until I get to altitude, then reduce to about half and fly around keeping it there, with occasional spurts to do various maneuvers. With electrics, you are always on the throttle, trying to keep it at a minumum to keep the plane flying and do maneuvers, AND to give you a little bit of flying time. With glow, the power band remains pretty much the same throughout the fuel tank life. Not so with electrics. As you drain batteries, the power available begins to deminish, and you will find less power available at half the flight than you had when you took off. Not much difference, but I noticed it.

Again, this is not to try to discourage but to inform. Make sure of what you want to do by talking to people and discussing what you want to do (as you are doing here) then go for it. Most of all, enjoy flying RC!!!

DS.

CG - spot on ...

Hello again, thanx again for the pointers. Here in Michigan, we still have alot of snow and basically bad days, so I guess there's no rush. Plenty of time to do more reading and studying. Thanx again for the help.

Happy flying,

harmsway

CG is right on, honest and unbiased facts. Alot of us do both, both have advantages and disadvantages. Don't let anyone tell you electric is cheaper, you pay for what you get, better performance from glow or electirc means buying better equiptment. With glow if you want to fly several times in a row, land fuel it up and test the receiver battery and take off. Electric, land change the battery and put first one on charge and take off. Flight times are ussually longer with glow, with electric there is always less clean up!

OK, now you've done it!!!!

Hello everyone,
I would like to convert a Pegasus 40 to electric. This was my first glow tyrainer and I beleive it can make me do the transition to electric.anyone can give me pointers on what engine, battery,... it would be my first electric rc aircraft and I am pretty new on it. I am not looking for 3D but ability to do loops, rolls, wing stall,... basics!
I use to fly it on floats and it flew great with a Tunder Tiger .46. What electric motor should I use to get a similar performance?
if any of you can give me a hint, I will be most grateful. My email is [email protected]
take care
Carlos