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RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy: The Simple Guide to Designing R/C Model Aircraft or Build Your Own Radio Control Flying Model Plane
 
 
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RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy: The Simple Guide to Designing R/C Model Aircraft or Build Your Own Radio Control Flying Model Plane [Paperback]

Carlos Reyes (Author), Tammy Crespin (Cover Design)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

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Book Description

January 28, 2009

Build and fly your very own model airplane design. Using clear explanations, you will learn about important design trade-offs and how to choose among them. The latest research and techniques are discussed using easy to understand language. You will discover:

  • The special challenges faced by the smaller models and how to overcome them.
  • How to choose the right material for each part of the airplane.
  • Easy rules for selecting the right power system, gas or electric.
  • When it makes sense to use one of the innovative KFm airfoils.
  • Pros and cons of canard and multi-wing configurations.
  • A step-by-step design process that includes goal setting and flight testing.
  • In-depth discussions of important topics like airfoils and wing design.
  • The sources of air drag and how to minimize their impact.

ADVANCE PRAISE

"This book is a joy to read! The writing style and wit add dimension in a way that is rarely found in today's reference materials. If someone has considered designing their own airplane and been put off because of complicated formulas, vocabulary and reference style that would bore even an engineer, this will convince them to go ahead and try it. Written with real people in mind and not engineers - and I mean that in a good way. This is a book that will reside along the other favorites on my bookshelf. Carlos really managed to produce a book that will last a long time and become one of the standards for modelers."

- Greg Gimlick, Electrics columnist, Model Aviation magazine


"RCAdvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy is the ultimate model airplane design book for both beginning and experienced modelers."

- Richard Kline, Inventor, KFm airfoils


"RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy is a real contribution to the world's literature on the subject. It provides an excellent bridge between full scale aviation and aeromodeling, showing the relationship between the two, for better understanding of the differences and similarities which should be applied for good model performance.

While thorough in detail, the book is also easily readable so that the information is simple to understand. It is a very good combination of theory and practical application. Nicely illustrated, the book is also full of common sense explanations and references to other sources of information."

- John Worth, former President and Executive Director of the AMA


"Carlos Reyes personably leads the reader through some basic aerodynamics, materials considerations, electric power system planning and a practical application of theory as it is applied to a finished flying model. The background history of various types of aircraft shows the development of aviation and how it relates to the models that we build and fly today, as well as how models have influenced general aviation. It is always exciting to find some 'new to me' concepts and theories, and there were several in this well-written narrative."

- Ken Myers, Editor, Ampeer electric flight newsletter


"No matter how long you've been aeromodelling, or what your interests are in our great hobby, the greatest thrill of all is standing behind a unique model that you've designed and built yourself, from a blank sheet of paper - or even a blank CAD file - and preparing to make that first take off.

So sit yourself down in a comfy chair, read RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy and set off on aeromodelling's greatest adventure.

Let Carlos Reyes - an aeromodeller of long standing and great talent - take you through the mysteries of how to arrive at the point that every lover of model aircraft should experience."

- Dereck Woodward, aeromodeller, designer and magazine writer for the past fifty years


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RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy: The Simple Guide to Designing R/C Model Aircraft or Build Your Own Radio Control Flying Model Plane + Model Aircraft Aerodynamics + Radio Control Foam Modelling
Price For All Three: $55.28

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Editorial Reviews

Review

This book is definitely needed by anyone getting into R/C or is a veteran flight fanatic! Tons of good info that racks my brain and gets me thinking. --Jamie Burke, Host, AllThingsThatFly.com

Review

This book is a joy to read! The writing style and wit add dimension in a way that is rarely found in today's reference materials. If someone has considered designing their own airplane and been put off because of complicated formulas, vocabulary and reference style that would bore even an engineer, this will convince them to go ahead and try it. Written with real people in mind and not engineers - and I mean that in a good way. This is a book that will reside along the other favorites on my bookshelf. Carlos really managed to produce a book that will last a long time and become one of the standards for modelers.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 206 pages
  • Publisher: RCadvisor.com (January 28, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0982261322
  • ISBN-13: 978-0982261323
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.7 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Model airplanes provide an incredible outlet for one's creativity. A very dedicated individual could perhaps design, build and test fly one full-size airplane per decade and it would cost thousands of dollars. On the other hand, a model airplane can be designed, built and flown in one day for $100 or less.

A 2001 study by Paul Ross examined 40 reviews of electric model airplanes in national magazines. He concluded that their average propeller efficiency was 39%, half of what it should have been. There is clearly a great need for an easy to use model airplane calculator.

RCAdvisor's free online calculator analyzes the performance of your flying model airplanes. Great care is taken in the computations to ensure a very high degree of accuracy, although ease of use was the primary design goal. Our mission is to help you have better flying models through education and analysis. Our goal is to become the standard, most trusted reference tool worldwide for the design and performance optimization of flying model aircraft.

RCAdvisor was founded in 2007 by Carlos Reyes. The website launched on January 1, 2008.

About our Name and Slogan

Our calculator gives you advice as you use it. It tells you what it thinks is wrong, why that might be a problem, and what you might want to do to fix it. This is a unique feature that no other model airplane calculator has.

The primary goal for the calculator has always been ease of use without sacrificing power. It uses state of the art artificial intelligence (AI) in three different parts of the program. The most obvious use is in the Power System Optimizer. AI is just as critical in the other two uses, but I plan to continue keeping them closely guarded secrets. What really counts is how well the calculator works, not what I had to do to deliver those results.

Biography

Carlos Reyes was born in Puerto Rico, growing up in New York City.

He has had life-long love affairs with airplanes and computers. As a child, he built and flew many rubber-powered model airplanes. He then moved on to small gas control-line models. In the mid-90s he helped pioneer the electric revolution by flying a .40 size electric model. He holds a Private Pilot-Glider license and once owned a full-size AS-W 20 high performance sailplane. He is very active in his local model airplane clubs.

Mr. Reyes bought his first personal computer in 1981 and got his first paying job as a computer programmer in 1983. He holds a degree in Computer Science from Columbia University and has extensive experience in the field.

 

Customer Reviews

19 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
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3 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A gold mine for RC aircraft design !, March 1, 2009
This review is from: RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy: The Simple Guide to Designing R/C Model Aircraft or Build Your Own Radio Control Flying Model Plane (Paperback)
I am an EE/Physics type working in materials & electronic device design, but RC models, building, and aerodynamics have been a life long interest of mine, designing, building, and flying mostly small and medium sized electrics at this point. I just recently bought Carlos Reyes' book "Model Airplane Design Made Easy", and I am enjoying it immensely.

The has a broad range practical info on materials properties choices and how to think about aircraft design choices that face EVERY new design. The book is full of non-mathematical and understandable descriptions and explanations of important and often misunderstood concepts in aerodynamics (behavior of wings and airfoils, choice of power plant and propellor, etc.) I was especially delighted with the big list of high quality web and paper references on related topics. This book is a gold mine!.

I am also beginning to dig into the companion RCAdvisor calculator(http://www.rcadvisor.com/guest), to try to understand it better, and explore its capabilities. The book and the RCAdvisor website are a wonderful combination. I highly recommend them both; I am sure that together they will improve the quality of my power system choices (motor, prop, battery) and also reduce the frequency of cut and try in my scratch built designs.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A fine distillation, June 25, 2009
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This review is from: RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy: The Simple Guide to Designing R/C Model Aircraft or Build Your Own Radio Control Flying Model Plane (Paperback)
Over the years I've accumulated most of the books on Model Aircraft design - from Frank Zaic's 1987 edn. of "Circular Airflow" to the latest version of Martin Simon's "Model Aircraft Aerodynamics". This one joins the list of the very few (like those two and the somewhat brain-testing but excellent stuff by Ferdinando Gale) that get top marks. Having long ago trained as an Engineer I have a soft spot for numbers that are useful and Carlos has brought off that very difficult task: writing about quantitative things that are complex with just the right amount of numbers and formulae. Any modeller with the most basic math (think multiplying and dividing and fractions!) could follow his descriptions which are deceptively simple and easy. This book is for non-experts because it is a great read, easily accessible and welcoming but make no mistake this is an expert book by an expert. Carlos has a rare ability to distill in personable and direct prose some very important stuff. And it's not just classical aerodynamics. He covers a huge range of topics from airfoils to adhesives, particularly some that get little attention elsewhere like propeller performance, in a friendly format by focusing on the key information. His explanation of lift is a classic example. Just 3 short elegant paragraphs covers the essence of the Bernoulli explanation with a fourth noting that there is an alternative. For practical modelers his ""It is not a bad way of looking at the phenomenon, but it is less useful when doing computations than the pressure differential explanation" beats the many pages of circulation theory and bound vortices others labor over. I can't recommend this book highly enough. Think of it as the Cognac of Model Aerodynamic texts. Instantly accessible without years of experience in fine wine tasting but with enormous depth and content. An extra point for recognizing that not everyone lives in the US and metric units are important too. :-)

It's an absolute bargain at the price.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Model Airplane Design, May 21, 2009
By 
Martin Chesler (Charleston, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: RCadvisor's Model Airplane Design Made Easy: The Simple Guide to Designing R/C Model Aircraft or Build Your Own Radio Control Flying Model Plane (Paperback)
Clear easy to understand information. Book is well organized and logical. Topics provide understandable answers to many model airplane design questions. If you build, design, or fly model airplanes this book is well worth the price.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tandem wing airplane, adding winglets, separation drag, stall resistance, tailless designs, pilot compensation, canard surface, elliptical planform, chord size, tip chord, separation bubble, induced drag, span loading, taper ratio, skin friction drag, producing lift, wing planform, flight load, lift coefficient
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Model Airplane Design Made Easy, Power Systems, Fluid Dynamics Boot Camp, Design Process, Burt Rutan, Richard Kline
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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