Nigel R

save money - buy a real turbine! 😀

ok I get it now - sorry

80% of drivers think they are above average. A lot of drivers overestimating themselves out there. I'm all for things that make humans less likely to make mistakes.

Sudden price increase? Comparing like for like - I have been using Weston 5% for a few years. The 5% Weston is just under £20/gal. It was £15/gal about 6 years ago? (please correct that if I'm wrong). Seems about 33% over the 2018/2019 to 2024 period. Almost every consumer good is at least 20% more expensive since 2018/2019... (And have any of us tried buying food lately!? Daylight robbery.) Notes: Weston do imp. gallons, Optifuel sell in 5L bottles. Weston 10% is £22 for a gallon, so for 5L for a direct comparison to Optifuel 12 would work out at about £24.50. Another couple of %nitro would probably make Weston charge another pound. Say £25.50 Optimix 12% is £31.50 from: https://www.rcworld.co.uk/acatalog/Glow-Fuel.html In the end, a direct comparison seems to be have it at about 20% between the brand-I-should-not-have-named, and a "top" brand. Lastly, SMC seem to have very similar pricing to Weston. i.e. other choices are out there. I don't know, I mentioned our food bill, this has doubled since 2018. We're not buying different stuff or even more stuff. General inflation seems pretty steep of late.

One of your high Nitro ducted fans Paul? Almost 1/6 of that bottle per go, I make it a little under €6.

My biggest glow in regular service is a 15cc size four stroke in an Aeromaster - seems to get through only 6oz per 10+ minute flight, so not very much different to that Irvine 53. My maths has that at about a wopping £1 per flight. Pretty much as Brian says.

Doesn't it park itself?

So it's just like every other component on a car, engineered to last 5 years exactly? I blame Colin Chapman... although he only offered a one race guarantee.

You may find that the car manufacturers have taken the extra stop/start cycles into account...

If only he'd pressed the button to disable it. "A tool is only as good as the hands that wield it." Still, I doubt it actually prevented him from parking, so I'd say it's neither here nor there.

I've had good results with Hobbywing ESCs. (exactly like Shaun's linked for you)

There's pros and cons to UBECs. Personally - I've never used a separate RX battery on an electric airframe. There are other opinions, etc.

Well that's certainly a large pile of FUD.

That sounds faulty, TBH. I've never needed to "do" anything to get mine to restart. It starts as soon as I (start) releasing the brake. And it starts very quickly, quickly enough that by the time I'm bringing the clutch back up its started and running ready to simply pull away. Sure, you can beat it by putting the car in gear first, and being as quick as you can with brake and clutch, but why would I want to, driving like that isn't very compatible with being in traffic...

Such as when the car detects an empty road ahead? This is already a thing.

...or don't drive in traffic? 😀 Surely it does nothing once you're moving? 😀 I thought I'd dislike stop/start. But. After about three days driving the car I'd ceased noticing it. Definitely off topic with that one though, its not a driver aid. That said, I can't see the drawback with improving air quality, by cutting down on queues of cars sat stationary, idling, and still pumping out exhaust.

Can't say I have any issues with the driver aids in mine. Perhaps I was lucky with my choice of car? Humans in general are daft creatures and not always competent and concentrating. Tricky to argue against the aids on that basis.

Nice one JD 👍 And good luck!

SMC are now shipping? Didn't know, good news. £20/gallon seems a decent base price. How much are they charging for shipping four gallons?

Oops! 🤦‍♂️ (didn't check I just pasted my link in)

Decent mechanical switch for RX packs: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/slide-switches/1759703

Horsepower and kw are measuring the exact same thing. Keep on spouting.

Well now, I disagree. It's a machine that uses energy. Petrol is approx 30kwh per imperial gallon. At 30% efficiency (being generous) you get about 10kwh of that turned into forward motion, with 20kwh sent out in heat. Either way, if you can scrape 40mpg, you did 1.3 miles per kwh. This ignores a whole heap of extraction and distribution costs. Electrics do 4 miles per kwh, which ignores a lot of extraction and distribution - and also conversion and transmission and charging costs. Efficiency of the conversion/transmission/charging part is variable depending on electricity source, but (e.g.) gas powered stations can reach 60%, the electrical grid is around 95%, and lipos charge at about 90%... 60% x 95% x 90% = approx 50%. So that 4 miles per kwh is more like 2 miles per kwh, by the time the magic smoke has finally made its way into the motor in a way we can compare to the oil burner. Experts, let me know where I'm wrong.

https://solarfilm.co.uk/products/supershrink-polyester?variant=8500036796460 10m of white is £44. Lots of colours remain available.

Days of paying £10 for 5 metres of HK film are long gone. 5m rolls of most films are approx £25. Could be a lot worse. That said I bought 10m of solarspan for my current project, also approx £5/metre.