Rubber Powered Model Airplanes: Comprehensive Building & Flying Basics, Plus Advanced Design-Your-Own Instruction (Don Ross)

This is a well written book about how to get started building balsa wood flyers. To get the most out of this book would take some dedication, but what rewarding hobby doesn't require dedication?

Good for learning or for advancing building techniques.I purchased this book after struggling to understand Aerodynamics. I learn by doing and this book helped. Instead of first giving the reader theory, this book starts the reader off by having them build a simple rubber band power plane. Then having the reader build another more advanced rubber band powered plane; all within the first hand full of chapters. Along the way you can't avoid learning the theory.I haven't built all the planes contained in the book, they get more challenging as You go along, but I highly recommend this book.You have to carefully read the building instructions but it's all there.

Very few books I have read on this subject simply toss you into the hobby like this one. It is truly a "Full Immersion" technique, as the first chapter takes you through, step by step, on building your first Rubber Powered Model Airplane. You will be done in a few hours and you will have a model that floats lazily upward then dreamily back to Earth. From there you will increase the complexity of the models before long you will be taking on large scale rubber scale models. If you have even a passing interest in model planes, you need this book.

Anyone that is interested in building and flying balsa/tissue aircraft should have this book near their workbench. Great illustrations and information that are a must to anyone building and flying free flight model airplanes.

It's okay. The author is a little verbose. Having been written decades ago, some of the info is outdated. The author focuses on rubber powered airplanes and pay little attention to gas powered models. Due to it's age nothing regarding electric FF is included in the book. But it's still a useful book.

This is a great book when starting to build and fly rubber powered flying model airplanes. The book is mainly about building model planes. Gives basic building techniques through how to carve props. A super reference book. I gave my 1992 copy away recently so this is a replacement copy for me. Join the Academy of Model Aeronautics and the National Free Flight Society and get involved in a great hobby.

This book is chock full of hints for both beginner and expert alike, but as many have mentioned here, it desperately could use some form of organization -- especially an INDEX! Aside from the book being an authority on rubber-motor aircraft modeling, it's highly dated.Still, some editing could have helped-- the book is all over the place, providing tips on landing gear, wings etc. across different places in the book. Even though I've only built about two airplanes, any modeler would appreciate a good reference that they can flip open for advice on a particular part of their build. Not something you can easily do with this book.I'm sure modelers everywhere would welcome a modern version of the book, as websites, YouTube videos and forums for this fun craft are often scattershot as well.

In the unlikely event that someone would wish to build a real model airplane instead of a ready built in the far east, powered by out runner electric motor, or enormous petrol engine, they could discover this almost forgotten thrill of something you have actually created yourself, right down to carving your own propeller, and then after a careful trimming session, seeing it fly, perhaps catching a thermal. I hope you remembered to light the dethermaliser fuse?Highly recommended.