R/C Links
Aerodynamics, suppliers, electrics etc.

Here are a number of links to my favourite useful websites. Most of them are concerned with R/C planes, especially electric, because that's my main interest but there are also various others. Since I'm in the UK and I'm cheap these are biased towards UK/European resources and freebies.

NOTE: I have visited all these sites and the links are checked fairly frequently (I hate it when half the interesting sounding links on a list are broken, so if you find one of these not working please let me know. slewin@hotmail.com Thanks).

Organised into

• R/C general
• R/C related personal sites
• Electric flight (including slow flight)
• Helicopters and Autogyros
• Control Line
• R/C Flight Sims
• Plans, software and electronics
• Aerodynamics/Aviation Technical
• UK R/C Suppliers
• Other Suppliers

R/C General sites
R/C Flight Unlimited	Excellent site with a Beginner's Guide that everyone should read, lots of good reviews plus loads more
B.M.F.A.	British Model Flying Association. Handbook and R/C Achievement scheme details are available plus a useful Club Search and links to a number of club websites. Now has a Sales/Wants advert section too.
RC Online	The forums are particularly good but there is all sorts of other interesting and useful stuff on here, like loads of clipart to use in Club newsletters, RCO.NET and R/C chat
GBRCAA	Great Britain R/C Aerobatics Association
RDRC	Raleigh Durham Radio Control (US). If you're ever in North Carolina, try this excellent club. Some of the friendliest folks I've ever met.
Crystal River	Crystal River R/C Club (US), including an excellent R/C training manual
RRCMFA	Rochdale Radio Control Model Flying Association (UK). Site is a bit sparse at moment but I'm sure it will develop
Hovercraft	A bit out of the ordinary this site has lots of info about hovercraft, both model and full-size
Eduardo's 3-views	A good range of FREE 3-views of all sorts of aircraft. The quality is fair if not brilliant but it's a worthwhile project and you really can't complain at the price
Swedish F3A	In better English than I can usually manage, this Swedish site has lots of useful information about competitive aerobatics etc.
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R/C Related Personal Web pages
Jim Archer	Some useful hints and tips and nice pics.
Jan Bassett	He mainly flies Electrics these days and also runs the BEFA website (well worth a look) but there is a little I/C stuff on here too.
A Beavis production	If you don't know Beavis you ain't been reading rec.models.rc.helicopters (Or r.m.r.a). Another heli-based site with some useful information (and the "Is that really his wife" contest).
Harold v.d.Berk	Dutch based. Harold's Electric Flight page with an excellent set of mainly European links.
Bob Dunsire	Mainly IMAC pattern etc. There are a couple of Bob's planes available on the CSM Swap site.
Compass Aero Pages	Arthur Fletcher's homepage with excellent UK model and full-size events listing and general links pages. Now has lots of useful photos of full size aircraft, many of them just right for an interesting colour scheme for your scale model.
Chuck Gadd	Interesting electric info but the highlights are some really useful calculators (servo size, wing loading etc) and an English translation of the excellent free FMS flight sim.
Toine Martens	Busy site in Dutch and English. Worth a look.
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Electric Flight
B.E.F.A.	British Electric Flight Association. Details of events most of which should not be missed if you have any interest in electric flight in the UK. Also a good Beginners guide to electric flight
E-Zone	Home of the E-Zone e-magazine, e-flight mailing list and more
EFlight search	Search the archives of the EFlight mailing list. There's more Electric Flight knowledge here than you'd believe
High Voltage	Excellent Electric Flight site by Craig Kulesa
MFG Aspach	Major European E-Flight meeting, this time in Germany.
Red's Battery Clinic	Red Scholefield know a lot more about NiCad batteries than most people. Read this before you start sounding off about "memory effects" and "batteries should be stored discharged". It could save you from making a fool of yourself.
Slow Flying	A Belgian site about R/C indoor flying. Well worth a look.
Ken Myers EFO	Home of EFO and the Ampeer magazine plus lots of articles by the electric maestro Keith Shaw and others
Team Klaustrophobia	Superb German slowfly site. Take a look at the indoor, fully aerobatic Pitts biplane among many others. And now free plans for a Citabria built from Depron
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Helicopters and Autogyros
JB's Autogyros	Now THE site to visit for autogyro information. I like these odd devices
Rick's Gyro page	Another excellent site exclusively about autogyros. I have to build one soon.
Pixel Homepage	Is this the smallest helicopter around at only 99 grams ? 3D in your own living room ?
W3MH	(WWW Model Helicopters) The most detailed site I've found dedicated solely to model helicopters and it's UK based
Torsten's Heli site	Loads of useful information from the creator of the excellent additional heli graphics for CSM (available from this site and now released by CSM with the latest V10).
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Control Line
CLAPA	Control Line Aerobatic Pilots Association. What we used to call "Stunt" when I were a lad.
C/Line plans	A few interesting free plans can be found here.
Control Line UK	Useful site for general UK information
UK C/L Navy Carrier	If you haven't seen Carrier competition yet go and have a look.
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R/C Flight Simulators
Aerofly	New German flight sim with helis and fixed-wing. Looks interesting. There is a self-running "demo/sample" available.
CSM Flight Simulator	Still the best R/C flight simulator for serious use in my opinion. The current version is V10. Check my CSM swap page for review and screen shots of this latest version
Dave Brown RCFS	Dave Brown sim and more. Sim is now at V5 and has a new lower price. There are many, many planes available for this sim and although it may not be best for realism it's still good value for money
FlyRC simulator	Take a look at this FREE simulator which includes instructions for connecting your Tx to the PC. The graphics aren't brilliant but it's great for the price.
FMS simulator	Another FREE simulator from Germany this time. Some interesting planes including a slow flyer. Some of the expensive commercial sims are going to have to get moving if they want to stay ahead of this excellent freebie
Helix Sim	Helix has been around longer than I realised. Like CSM, it does not need lots of resources and uses your own Tx (via a built-in Rx if you like to avoid trailing leads). It has a VTOL Harrier among its planes and has had at least one good review. There are lots of features (record/replay flights for example) but the graphics are a bit old-fashioned.
RealFlight Flight Simulator	Latest flight simulator. Good graphics if you have a PC and particularly a 3D graphics card which is up to it. Check here, but be careful about the minimum specification PC suggested. The Deluxe version including helicopters is now available.
TruFlite	TruFlite 98 latest upgrade of this UK based simulator. Uses your own Tx, has excellent graphics, helis and fixed wing but some folks have suggested that the flight dynamics are a bit suspect. I haven't tried it myself.
Computer Designs	Not a sim but an interface that allows you to use your own transmitter with those sims that are driven via the PC games port e.g. RealFlight,Dave Brown etc. Will also let you fly MS Flight Sim and the Combat games-type sims F16, Flight Unlimited etc with your Tx. Now that's really weird.
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Plans, software and electronics sites
StarCad Plans	A brilliant site by Guy Fuller. Now moved to a new site and better than ever ! Contains many free plans for all sorts of model aircraft in various CAD formats. I have CSM sim profiles available for a few of them so that those of you with this simulator can try them out before you decide to build.
Ken Hewitt	Ken is electronics editor for RCME. The site contains details of his many electronics kits and designs plus other useful info.
Foils 4.2 and more	John Hunt's useful site with a free aerofoil program and other interesting stuff
Profili	Here's another excellent free aerofoil display/plotting program, from Italy this time.
Sussex Club	Another site with a number of interesting plans.
Seagull Homepage	Build your own CNC router and other projects (not many quite that ambitious).
Electronic gadgets	A wide range of electronic projects for R/C and associated info. Also links to many other related sites.
Planos R/C	Another free plans site, mainly in Spanish but with English translations for quite a lot. Some of these plans are also on Starcad but there are plenty of others I've not seen elsewhere.
Electronic designs	Interesting site from Russia with several "Electronic devices for modelling". Includes a design to build your own piezo gyro !
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Aerodynamics and other technical aviation sites
Selig at UIUC	The definitive airfoil site. More airfoils than you will ever need plus loads of good info
Martin Hepperle	The other airfoil site. First class information including some good general aerodynamics and even "How propellers work".
Applied Aerodynamics	Applied Aerodynamics-Digital Textbook from Stanford University. Only partial information, you're supposed to buy the full version. What there is is a bit complex but worth the effort I think
How it flies	Again aimed at full-size (pilots rather than designers) but the physics is the same for us. Mercifully short on complex mathematics
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UK Modelling Suppliers
Electrics
F2A Supplies	CEM cobalt motors and lots of other electric flight goodies.
Gordon Tarling	Gordon makes some excellent ESCs of his own and imports loads of other electric goodies into the UK including Schulze and Orbit chargers, Jim Ryan's S400 warplanes and ModelAirTech gearboxes etc.
Gliders Distribution	Loads of sailplanes and electric stuff, especially Graupner
Overlander	Nothing but batteries and associated bits
General
Free Flight Supplies	Mike Woodhouse. A good range of high tech (carbon/kevlar etc) materials as well as other lightweight stuff ideal for small electrics/slowflight. Don't expect much real information though. Mike sells information as well as products. His choice !
HMM	Howard Metcalfe Models. Howard has some very nice designs, glow and electric (and even indoor rubber). The kits are comprehensive and reasonably priced.
Inwood Models	Excellent range of general modelling gear at some of the best prices around.
Just Engines	As you might guess, suppliers of many fine engines. Moki, MVVS, Jett, OS, PAW, SuperTigre etc. Look out for the Special Offers page, changed monthly.
Mainlink Systems	Manufacturers and suppliers of first class battery analyser, chargers and other electronic goodies
Model Technics	Everything you might want to know about fuel and associated matters
Nexus Publications	It took them a while to get into the electronic age but this site is not bad. Separate sections for the 3 mags (Aeromodeller, RCM&E and Silent Flight) plus top 10 plans and books to buy.
PAW Engines	The Eifflaenders, Gig, Tony and Paul have been making model engines, almost exclusively diesels, for over 50 years now. Also Staystrate C/L wire which is getting hard to find.
Phoenix Models	Mainly soarers but also the famous (notorious ?) Wingbat and a growing range of "unbreakable" EPP gliders
Ripmax	One of the biggest distributors of modelling gear in the UK. Importers of Futaba, MDS engines, TopFlite kits among others. Distributors of the wonderful Model Designs electric scale(ish) kits.
Sussex Model Centre	Large stocks of pretty well every modelling need. The best (printed) catalogue in the business. Sometimes a few special offers available on the site.
Traplet On-line	Website of Traplet Publishing, home of Electric Flight International, R/C Model World etc. On-line ordering for mags, books, plans etc.
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R/C suppliers outside the UK
Electrics
AstroFlight	Astro Flight high quality cobalt motors and now brushless, plus controller, chargers etc. Astro Bob practically invented electric flight and he has the patents to prove it.
Aveox	You must have heard of Aveox brushless motors, controllers etc. Used by lots of the top competetive electric fliers. Very good but not cheap.
Clancy Aviation	Not strictly electric but home of the Lazy Bee and Speedy Bee. All the best ones are electric !
Electricalc	Program to calculate flight characteristics of Electrics and more. If you're serious about Electric Flight you need either this program or Motocalc (or both)
MaxCim	Maxcim Motors Inc - brushless motors and controllers from the US. Aimed more at sport and scale fliers rather than serious competition and used by such luminaries as Keith Shaw and Jack Sowle. Like all brushless motor systems these are expensive but brilliant. (Can you tell I've just talked myself into buying one ?)
IMA	Innovative Model Aviation (foam electric models and supplies). They have both indoor and outdoor models. Based in Belgium they are nice people to deal with.
Motocalc and more	Like Electricalc, a program to calculate flight characteristics of Electrics etc. You need either this program or Electricalc(or both). Lots of other good plane and gadget info on this site
Modelair Tech	Tom Hunt has some excellent gearboxes and DeWalt motors. But for me the highlight is his range of "Stik" built plans and kits. First class planes built almost entirely from 1/4 x 1/8 balsa strip.
New Creations	US based company specialising in Electrics and Gliders. Lots of good detailed info.
Schulze	Schulze Elektronik - first class chargers, speed controls etc. Available in the UK from Gordon Tarling. Site is in English.
WES-Technik	German company but don't panic the site is in English. Probably the best supplier in the world for Indoor and Slow Fly R/C equipment. Tiny receivers, servos, ESCs etc. And have a look at their terms of business, you won't believe them.
General
Dr Diesel	There are not a lot of model diesel engines available in the US. Eric Clutton (Dr Diesel) is an ex-pat Brit from my home town of Stoke who imports the PAW range and a few others.
East Coast Models	That's the east coast of Canada. They carry a huge range and if you're thinking of ordering direct from "over there" try them. They don't charge an arm and a leg for shipping to Europe like Tower seem to. Watch out for conversion rates, the Canadian dollar is worth less than the US dollar so the prices look high at first.
Hobby Shack	One of the main US competitors for Tower Hobbies. Nice site.
Spirit of Yesteryear	Some of the finest classic models of, as the name suggests, "yesteryear" reproduced with modern techniques.
Tower Hobbies	You must have heard of Tower Hobbies. Probably the largest modelling retailer in the world. This is a good site with some useful information and a lot more links for you to check out in the R/C Web.
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