Links
Suppliers' sites
- Emax - full details of motors and ESCs
- MPJet motors - fortunately their products are a lot better than their web site
- Jamara - brushed motors
- GibbsGuides.com - the guides are available direct from Andrew Gibbs' site. (Listed in this category because Andrew has kindly provided a number of the photos on the Fanfare site).
National associations
- BEFA - British Electric Flight Association, main specialist body for electric flight. (EGM 28 June 09 regrettably decided soon to be dissolved).
- BMFA - British Model Flying Association, main national body for all aero-modelling
- BARCS - British Association of Radio-Controlled soarers, mainly pure gliders but also covers electric gliding competitions
- NIMSA - Northern Ireland soaring Association (includes some electric coverage)
- AEFA - Australian Electric Flight Association
- AMA - US Academy of Model Aeronautics (not a lot on the site); NEAC electric flight special interest group - or at least their web site - seems defunct?
- MFNZ - Model Flying New Zealand; (not much) electric in their soaring section
- FAI - see espeically CIAM - FAI's 'international modelling commission' and CIAM links to all national bodies.
Forums
- RCMF - Radio Controlled Model Flying huge general RC flying forum which includes a lot of electric flight coverage
- Model Flying (RCME) - growing forum from the RCME magazine again with a lot of electric flight coverage
- Flying Sites forum - on the Flying Sites R/c aero portal (which includes an excellent set of commercial site links).
- eSoaring.net - forum dedicated to the new 2009 height limited competition class and the 200W/Kg 'Bartlett's Farm' class - but lots on electric gliders in general.
- Fly Quiet - mainly for pure gliders but includes a big electric gliding section
- RC Talk UK - electric section of a large UK forum
- High Alpha - electric area of a small but interesting new English forum
- RCGroups - giant US forum with a lot of electric flight coverage. Includes the E Zone online magazine. And a nice canard thread.
- RC universe: Electric aircraft universe - another big US forum
- Wattflyer - big US-based e-flight forum.
- Electric F3A forum
- FlyingGiants electric - another US forum with e-flight coverage.
- RC Canada - electric flight forum
- Ireland Model Forum - small electric section in a mostly-slope forum
- Modelisme.com - French electric flight forum (unsurprisingly in French)
- Ornithopter forum - includes some splendidly esoteric discussion, including hovering ornithopters (and see also commercial nano-development.)
- DIY drones forum - some fascinating UAV discussion.
- Home builders' forum - new Oshkosh 365 forum includes discussion of electric full-size
Blogs etc .
- Stefan's Electric R/C Web Site - Stefan Vorkoetter. Small but techie site.
- Electric RC Airplane - a bit rudimentary.
- 30000' RC Plane Challenge - great idea. Did it - er - get off the ground?
- B.E.R.G. blog - gliders and electric gliders in South Africa; including a SA electric glider x-country distance record.
- 'Electric Glider' blog - takes all sorts to make a web.
Magazines
- QEFI - web site for the print magazine QEFI
- AMI - Aviation Modeller International (includes Aero Modeller)
- RCMW - web site for Radio Control Model World
- RCME - web site including forum and a lot of electric coverage for the print magazine RCME
- Model Airplane News - with opportunity to sign up for a free e-newsletter
- E Zone - huge US online electric flight magazine
- Ampeer online - interesting US club mag.
- Modelflight - splendid online general aeromodelling magazine from Reg Heath
- CIAM Flyer - some electric coverage in this publication from the CIAM.
Other good stuff
- James Ballard's AmpedRC tutorial videos - great 'how to' clips demonstrating on an electric Yak. Beginners stuff through to advanced 3D manoeuvres.
- Inter-Ex - truly inspirational site about the annual Inter-Ex experimental model aircraft meet. Mostly electric. Still (Oct 09) a frustrating absence of photos from the 2008 and 2009 meets on the 'official' site but there are photos and videos on Stephan Brem's site. (A splendid link from Inter-Ex shows a VTOL EDF taileron model.)
- History of model electric flight - Dave Day's history starts with a model from 1909.
Further illustrations of equipment he mentions: Mabuchi A1; Mattel Superstar - History of model electric flight in Australia - from Peter Pine.
- Pioneers of electric flight - video including Col Taplin flying (and crashing?) an electric Radio Queen in 1957
- High Voltage! - Craig Kulesa's electric flight site was last modified 1998. A nice reminder of how things have changed in a decade.
- Monster Models David Theunissen's list of huge electric models (and his site has other material on electric flight)
- OVIRC - Unusual RC Flying Objects. Site in French. Includes ornithopters, pterosaurs etc.
- Ornithopter zone - really nice site on ... er ... ornithopters
- Competition classes - scare yourself with the FAI pylon (F5D )and multi-task electric glider (F5B) classes (these are the British team sites, or see a F5D video on a German forum; or plenty on F5D and F5B on YouTube.
UK 200W/kg closer is far closer to sports modelling (and has details of new height-limited class for 2009))
In FAI aerobatics, Electrics compete successfully with IC. See Dez Vaghy's pages (Canadian national team member); the Electric F3A site; the great Wolfgang and Roland Matt's (less great) site -
Full size electric flight is a growth area
(see also UAV / MAV - the boundaries are fuzzy):
Yuneec 430 launched June 2009 claims - perhaps contentiously - to be the first commercially electric produced full-size(and yes it is the same firm as the Robcopter). Yuneec video.
Electra claims to be the first electric powered light aircraft
Kelvin on the BVS site claims a British electric microlight flew in 1996.
Skyspark - world speed record for electric full size June 2009.
Sonex two-seater explanatory video
Pipistrel Virus won the NASA General Aviation Technology Challenge 2008. (Two passengers and 50mpg!) See also their Taurus electric glider [& images / video].
Boeing fuel cell / electric hyrbrid aircraft video
Solar Impulse - Bertrand Piccard's project to fly around the world using solar power in 2011 - and a Solar Impulse simulator video.
Solar Flight - Sunseeker II and other projects
Sky-sailor project - including a 27 hour solar flight.
Solar electric paramotor flights for charity
Battery Vehicle Society site includes a number of electric aircraft.
History of electric flight is covered in Kitplanes Magazine. See also references to what seems to be the first full-size electric plane (built by Fred Militky) in Dave Day's model history above; and André Noth's splendid history of solar-electric flight (and see also Noth's Design of Solar Powered Airplanes for Continuous Flight).
Antares 20E and Silent 2 are commercially available electric powered gliders. More on Dave Nadler's site (US agent for Antares)..
ElectraFlight - has commercial electric microlights, including now the cute and model-like ElectraFlyer-C. (More, and several videos and photos, on the -C))
CAFE foundation (Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency includes a lot of electric flight material. See also CAFE's April 2009 symposium on electric flight. (And 2008 symposium, interestingly reviewed by Peter Garrison in Flying.)
Clean Sky is a European Commission joint technology initiative 2008-2013 with a budget of €1.6 billion; but no stress on electric flight.
Home-builders' forum - new Oshkosh 365 forum includes discussion of electric full-size
Jukka Tervamäki has an electric autogyro (though as yet only a virtual one. Autogyros site is dedicated to r/c model autogyros but mostly IC.)
US Centennial of Flight Commission has information on electric airships in the 1880s.
Full-size glider electric winch? - intriguing (if unpromising) discussion
NASA In-Space Propulsion Technology Program - scale possibilities for the more ambitious electric modeller? Or try nano-technology propulsion.
Wikipedia entry on electric and solar aircraft is a useful one. - Electric UAV (unmanned air vehicles)
Helios Prototype - NASA's solar-powered flying wing is extraordinary (but the more model-like Qinetiq Zephyr holds duration record as of July 2008.)
Modular UAV developed in South Africa (size kept down to model classification)
Draganfly (sic) multi-rotor helis and tandem wing
MHL Flying Fish 'autonomous buoy'
HADA - Spanish hybrid fixed wing/heli
Aerocopter - 'counter-rotating mono tilt rotor'
HeliPlat - not a heli at all; Italian solar powered converted 7m scale model glider
MW microdrone
'DIY Drones' student project Purdue University (Indiana). Now (April 09) includes a Ning social networking site. See also ArduPilot and AttoPilot systems (and some discussion of their different operations and markets.
Zechlaser drone - edf fliers may pick up some ideas from the pneumatic catapult launch system?
UAVSA - UK drone UAV association site - Micro Air Vehicles - FPV has made it into the model mags recently ('First person view' - on-board video transmitted to virtual-reality goggles for an r/c pilot to fly the plane or heli.) MAVs takes this a stage further, bringing robotics to the electric heli: the video signal is used for computers to fly the vehicle. See Pixhawk Zurich student project and 2009 Florida-based conference and competition. A half-way house: GPS FPV recovery.
- Not exclusively electric, but useful - world listing of frequencies available for aeromodelling.
- Not at all electric, but just great - inspiration for your next model from the between-the-wars aeroplane inventions detailed at Rex Research.
And in similarly experimental vein ...
- the Spratt Controlwing and related videos;
- video of a dufferent form of silent flight, the Besler steam plane;
- more on Kirsten's cycloidal flying machin
- Stipa-Caproni flying barrel (from the splendid 'Bomberguy' YouTube aviation history channel) - .