As an experienced scale modeller, full-sized-pilot & amateur-aerodynamicist I purchased this book (& several others) for my son who is expressing an interest in flying RC aircraft. Having read this book & others I decided that this would have been more than enough on its own. Also, I rather enjoyed reading it for my own benefit.This book is remarkably well put together. It is obviously written by somebody who has a wealth of relavent and practical experience backed by solid theory and an understanding of the issues faced by somebody wanting to enter the hobby/ sport of RC model aircraft.
The subject matter covers the wide scope of radio control & model aircraft - including fixed & rotary wings - from history to the future, from planning to advanced flying. There is a handful of simple line drawings which are clear and enhance the text. There is a huge number of high-quality, mostly colour photos which support and illustrate the text. Where the subject matter could be expanded in detail to a much fuller degree, the author refers the reader to specialist books in a constructive manner.
The reader who will benefit most from this book is somebody who wishes to enter the hobby/ sport of radio control aircraft with little or no prior knowledg of the subject matter. If you read no other book you would be off to a good start. Experienced modellers/ flyers like myself will potentially find it useful to help to ease new entrants into the hobby/ sport, to expand our own knowledge of the hobby/ sport and to become aware of alternatives to the way we already do things.
The down side? Yes, there is one. This book is written particularly for a UK audience using current UK prices in £-Sterling, and a reference section about British clubs & radio frequencies. As a non-UK person these sections are of no consequence. Perhaps a future issue would benefit a wider geographical audience if it gave reference sections for other countries, too - or at least a set of Internet URLs that the interested reader could use to locate the country-specific stuff.
Was this £14 or €20 well spent? In my estimation - absolutely, yes. My thanks to David Boddington for this excellent book.
