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Special Interests

Aerial photography, telemetry, night flight, records,unusual models

Links:

SAM
The Society of Antique Modelers is dedicated to antique and old-timer planes, originally designed for free flight.
Magpie
The MagpieAP is a variation of the Magpie EPS/Depron airplane that was designed specifically for aerial photography. The MagpieAP has a larger wing and fuselage than the Magpie and has an integrated camera mount in the fuselage.
Remote Control Aerial Photography Association
RCAPA™ provides operational safety guidelines, best business practices, networking information and new technology information.
BalloonCraft RTF Electric R/C Blimp
 
Foam Floats.com - Your source for lightweight float sets
You can buy floats here, but there's also a lot of good info if you dig a bit into the site.
RC Aircraft Proving Grounds - Build Your Own Floats
Some software and design tips for float building.
Commander R/C Models floats
Floats for large models.
$1.97 Floats - RC Groups
Step by step tutorial on building your own floats for a Slow Stik from foam board.
Skis and Floats
Float and ski builds and information. Lots of good info here.
Data - Free plans and great links on the web - RC Groups
Most of these are not electric, but this is a great list of plans and links to float planes and waterplanes.
Nurflugel
Flying wing mania. What can I say? Information on flying wings to keep you busy for a long time.
AE-1 Silent
 
Lange Aviation
Lange Aviation builds manned electric gliders. Very impressive.
solair
 
AliSport
 
Around the world with a solar airplane
Betrand Picard, famous ballooner, is planning on an around-the-world flight in a solar-powered airplane.
International Miniature Aircraft Association, Inc.
Don't let the name fool you. These are large airplanes. Most are not electric, but this gives you an idea of what's possible.
RC Groups Discussion - 24 foot wingspan electric foam model
Almost a full-scale Cessna, built out of pink foam and a big, big motor. Wow.
Scratch Built 203" A-380 within one month - RC Groups
This guy builds the most amazing large planes from styrofoam and vynil signfilm.
Predator
This is one of the largest electric motors available. 12.5 kW
RC Groups - Micro Thread Index
A great listing of micro info.
WES-Technik
Makers of all kinds of micro motor and gear combinations and micro equipment.
Plantraco's RTF Butterfly - Fly in your Livingroom!
 
Gordon's Micro R/C Plane Site
Interesting planes and micro brushless motors.
Glowire Electroluminescent Wire
EL wire can be used to create spectacular night-flying schemes.
RC-CAM Projects: LED Calculator
A resistor value calculator for connecting your LEDS to a receiver for power.
Night Flying Slow Stick Build - RC Groups
Great info on building a night flight system with leds for flying in the dark.
Don's light, lamp and strobe site!
A comprehensive site with details on rigging up lighting systems using LED's and strobes, among others.
Grahams ornithopters
Two examples of micro ornithopters.
The Ornithopter Zone
Great info with links, projects, stuff to buy, and more.
RCU Magazine How-To - RC Smoke Smoke System
 
RCSmoke.com
The RC Smoke has earned a reputation all over the world for safety and reliability. A complete range of non-toxic smoke products are available for your personal sky writing needs in rich white or colored smoke.
R/C Airplane Tricks, smoke trails, aerial photography from Hobby Lobby!
Some gadgets from Hobby Lobby.
Endurance World Record for an electric helicopter
1 hour 37 minutes.
New World Distance Records for Electric Powered Model Aircraft
Electric sailplane (continuous power): 54.3 km. Electric heli: 4.85 km.
World Altitude Record for an Electric Propelled, Radio Controlled Aircraft
2573 metres above launch point.
AC Propulsion 48 hour flight
On June 3rd, 2005, AC Propulsion's SoLong UAV, an unmanned solar-electric airplane, completed it's first 48 hours aloft, a milestone in sustainable flight.
Doc-U-Link links for scale modelers
Doc-U-Link is designed with the scale modeler in mind. Doc-U-Link provides access to pre-qualified scale modeling resources on the web.
Eduardospage 3-views
LOTS of 3-views of planes, useful for scale modelling.
Scale Aero
A comprehensive, if confusingly laid out, site on scale modeling.
adventurelounge.com - Early Aircraft Design
Drawings taken from early patent applications for aircraft. Some scale ideas and lots of interesting, wacky designs.
JustPilots Scale Model Aircraft Pilot Figures and Accessories
The pilot figures produced by JustPilots are specifically designed for smaller model aircraft in the 1/16 to 1/8 scale range.
RC Pilot Heads for Model Airplanes from Hobby Lobby!
Lightweight vacuformed plastic pilot heads that are hand painted and ready to install. These are perfect additions for slow and parkflyer models.
1000 Aircraft photos
Photos of 1000 aircraft. Great for looking for a next scale subject.
The 2004 edition of Solar Splinter
Nice plane, but bad luck with the flights...
Laser powered aircraft
If you put the solar cells at the bottom, you can power an RC plane via a ground-based laser. Then you can keep it in the air for an unlimited time. Sounds like a great idea.
Eagle Tree
Telemetry and datalogging of flight commands and other conditions.
Electronics - Datalogger
A nice homebuilt datalogger for inflight logging.
AeroVironment Global Observer
World's First Flights of a Liquid Hydrogen Powered UAV
MicroPilot Small UAV Autopilots
The MP2028g from MicroPilot is the world’s smallest full featured UAV autopilot. Capabilities include airspeed hold, altitude hold, turn coordination, GPS navigation, plus autonomous operation from launch to recovery.
Inter-Ex Overview
Inter-Ex is a contest for unusual, innovative designs. The real aim of Inter-Ex is to promote experimentation in model flying and the development of unusual flying objects by swapping experiences, ideas, suggestions and details of construction methods.
X-PERIMENTAL WINGS, le site !!
Experimental aircraft on show. Some really strange designs here.
RCSkydiving.com - Not Just Skydivers Anymore!
Radio controlled skydivers and release boxes.
Aerocon Systems Descent Rate Calculator
Given the mass and the area of the parachute, this handy calculator works out a rough descent rate for your parachute.
THE TED BERETS
Great site for making your own parachutes. Includes a calculator to create the chute shape.
PARAMAX Modellfallschirmspringer
A very professional-looking R/C skydiver with controls for release, chute deployment and steering. Very detailed.
German producer of skydivers
A good-looking radio control skydiver. Unfortunately, the site is in German.
AeroFred - Micro Indoor RC Airplane Models and Accessories
AeroFred produces and sells exclusive and high quality micro indoor, peanut scale RTF and ARF model airplanes.
14 nights in the air
QinetiQ announced that it returned Zephyr, its solar powered high-altitude long endurance (HALE) Unmanned Air System (UAS) back to earth after two weeks in the air – smashing a number of long-standing official and unofficial world records.
AR.Drone.com – Parrot Wi-Fi quadricopter
The Parrot AR.Drone is controlled via your iPhone, using wi-fi. Looks interesting.
Project-Robotic Samara, Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory, Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland
The Automous Vehicle Laboratory in the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, where a mono-wing helicopter is being developed as a UAV.
Flying Green: The Possibilities And Challenges Of Electric Aircraft
Several new electric planes are being launched. Two of the most interesting planes to fly recently are the E430 and the SkySpark.
Interactive Toy Concepts
Interactive Toy Concepts - manufacturer of interactive flying toys. They manufacture the bladerunner series of helicopters.
Aerosound RC Products
Realistic engine sounds using a player and speaker. Mostly larger scale models, since the system adds about 8 oz to the plane.
soaring.goosetechnologies.com
This project aims to demonstrate an intelligent embedded system that finds and uses thermals to increase time aloft. Not electric, but noteworthy.
Winged Shadow Systems
Innovative Electronics for Model Aviation, including altimeter and airspeed meter.
ArduPilot
ArduPilot is a full-featured autopilot based on the Arduino open-source hardware platform. It uses infrared (thermopile) sensors or an IMU for stabilization and GPS for navigation.
WowWee FlyTech Bladestar -- Engadget
Indoor flying toys aren't hard to come by these days, but WowWee's newest looks interesting.
DIY Drones
The largest amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) community on the web.
DEMENTOR building a home solar powered UAV
Interesting project. This is still in the beginning stage, but shows promise.
Festo AirJelly -- Engadget
We'd explain this thing, but we're really having trouble taking our eyes off of it long enough to string some full sentences together.
Boeing Fuel Cell-Powered Airplane
Boeing Successfully Flies Fuel Cell-Powered Airplane -- MADRID, Spain, April 3, 2008
Lazertoyz RC Light Systems
Good lighting systems.
RC-Lights
RC-Lights is dedicated to providing high quality products to R/C enthusiasts. No matter what your RC passion there is a product for you - Cars, Trucks, Airplanes, Helicopters and Boats.
Welcome to LiGlow.com - Lights up your RC plane / helicopter, one pilot at a time
source of rc helicopter , rc airplane light set up, rc car lights, and lipo alarm
RC Lite Systems
RAM provides lighting systems that run off 9v batteries.
Quality LED - modsthatglow.com
Mostly components, not full systems. Build your own!
Super Bright LEDs – LED Lights, Bulbs, and Accessories
LED lights, components and LED products. All products are available for purchase online.
Flying boat design - Ivan's plans
Flying off water is fun, but there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind when converting a plane to floats.
Balsa Wood Airplanes - Toy Airplanes - Paul K Guillow Inc
Small, mainly free flight models. Some of these would be great micro rc models.
6.25g Micro Helicopter - RC Groups
6.25g Micro Helicopter: This is about as small as it gets.
Micro-UFO
A quadrotor microheli weighing in at 20 grams.
autopilot: Do it yourself UAV
Autopilot for model helicopters, with 3 axis IMU/INS GPS