Basics of R/C Model Aircraft Design: Practical Techniques for Building Better Models

Rating:
Summary: Good, solid design information
Review: If you're interested in building time tested design features into your airplane to maximize its performance, this book will certainly meet your expectations. It's not the kind of book you only read once, hence its worth, it's a reference book that you'll keep going back to everytime you undertake a new project.
Every chapter holds something useful you wish you had known before. The chapter on ducted cowls-i.e. building a nice, streamlined, good looking cowling- was one of my favorites.
A book I definetely recommend for the serious modeler.

Rating:
Summary: ACK! Why did I buy this?!?
Review: The title of this book is misleading. It should be called, "Model Aircraft Design for Aerospace Engineers." I have read graduate computers science text books that are easier to understand. There is little, or no attempt to define the terms for a beginner or your average modeler.

Before you buy this book, try to read the first and second chapter. If you understand half of what is described, then you might want to buy this book.

Had there been a glossary, I would not be writing this review. In my opinion, the publisher should add a glossary, or change the name.

I am sure there is useful information in it. I just hope my patience last long enough for me to find it.

Rating:
Summary: The best practical database for scratch built modeller !
Review: This book expects some knowledge about model airplane aerodynamics. It covers design and choice of appropraite airfoil, wing planform, fuselage inertia and layout, control surfaces size and shape, canard design, flying wing, reducing drag, ducted cowl design and others.
He also explains all of the approaches on particular models that he designed and flew.
This book belongs to the library of every serious airplane modeller.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Aerospace Engineering students
Review: This book helps a lot in understanding the basic concepts of aerodynamics, using mostly Layman's terms and having lots of graphs that can be used right out of the book in the design of real models.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide to the Intermediate or Advanced designer!
Review: This book is an excellent, time-tested guide to designing radio controlled model aircraft. Mr.Lennon explains everything in a confident and crisp tone. But most people just starting out in designing might find this book a little intimidating owing to the large number of math-like graphs and formulas right from page one. But if you are willing to persevere in your interest to design extremely reliable R/C modelled aircrafts then you should definitely read this book/guide. Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: Very good designers guide
Review: This book is very good R/C airplane designers guide. However, covering so many topics it could use some more pages and better organisation (the graphs are small and scattered trough the book in disorganized manner making them difficult to follow while reading explanations). Looking forward to next edition!

Rating:
Summary: good if you know what you are doing and have experience
Review: This books lacks organization of thoughts. It has a lot of information, but not well organized and not presented in a
methodical way. Some of the graphs and charts are just horrible
and difficult to read. If you keep at it and read the chapters
again and again, you will begin to understand airplane design.
Not really for a beginner.

Rating:
Summary: Crammed with disjoint information yet informative.
Review: Though overall a very useful book, this book seems to be a somewhat disjoint conglomeration of various articles about aircraft design that perhaps were once published in a magazine. There is no soft introduction for the beginner - be prepared to be inundated with a slew of graphs, equations and very dense writing that will demand some qualitative understanding of basic aerodynamics. (I would personally recomment _Understanding Flight_ by David Anderson and Scott Eberhardt, which is not very mathematical and quite easy to understand for a novice like myself.) The fact that these disjoint chapters don't flow together is a bit annoying, but on the other hand it is quite pleasant to have such a wide array of specific information in such a portable book. The section on reading airfoil charts is terse and yet intelligible. Be warned: if you're not familiar with the basics, you might get lost quickly and have to reference another text, as did I. If you're just a little dusty, however, there will be a very short review. (For example: how is angle of attack different than incidence, and how do these two things relate to both cambered and symmetrical airfoils? What causes a pitching moment?)

There is some discussion about exotic designs (three airfoil, canard, tailless and delta-wing, NASA safe wing, float design, etc.) although without much in-depth discussion about theory (for example, the NASA Safe Wing chapter described mostly about the history, advantages and characteristics of this device but very little about the theory or even implementation in a new design.) The author clearly tried to cover a lot of topics in a small amount of space, thus I would rate it more vast than in-depth.

Overall a good book with many examples (mostly from the author's own designs). Very useful, with an appendix of characteristics for the airfoils and models used in examples.