Volume R-1:

• How can you know how much flying time you will get from a receiver or transmitter battery pack?

• How can you determine the capacity of an older receiver or transmitter pack?

• What is "critical cutoff voltage?"

• Won't your Expanded Scale Voltmeter tell you how much charge is in your pack?

• Is there a way to make an ESV more accurate?

• If you know the capacity of a pack, how can you know how much flying time you will get?

• Is there a more precise way to calculate the average current draw of your system?

• How can you tell if you're using a large enough receiver battery pack?

• How can you tell if you're using the right charge rate for trickle charging?

• How can you tell how much charge your Fast Field charger is putting into your receiver and transmitter packs?

• Will the charger that came with your radio charge a five cell receiver pack properly?

• How does outside air temperature affect the capacity of your receiver and transmitter packs?

• How can you determine if your receiver pack was damaged in a crash?

• How can you tell in the Spring if your packs are ready for the coming flying season?

• Can you still use a pack that's five years old?

• Does a bad reading on a cycler mean you have a bad pack?

• How can a cycler cost you an aircraft?

• How long should I charge my receiver and transmitter packs?

• You said 10% for 14 to 16 hours. Why isn't it 10% for 10 hour? Isn't that 100%?

• What does "ma" and "mah" mean?

• At what rate does the standard charger that came with my radio charge?

• All of this is fine for a 500mah pack but my radio didn't come with a 500mah pack. It came with 700mah pack.

• How large a pack can be charged with the standard 50ma charger that came with my radio system?

• What about a 1500 mah pack? Can it be charged at 50ma too by lengthening the charge time to 36 hours or more?

• Why doesn't lengthening the charge time work?

• How critical is the timing? What if I forget and charge for longer than 14 to 16 hours?

• Does that mean that I can leave a pack on charge at the 10% rate all the time?

• With trickle charging the pack is on charge all the time. Why doesn't that hurt the pack?

• How long can I leave a pack on trickle charge and will it do any damage?

• Can a partially charged pack be trickle charged?

• Trickle charging sounds great. Where can I get a trickle charger?

• What about a pulsed or timed charge instead of a trickle charge?

• Can I just plug my charger into a timer?

• Can I charge a pack in less than 14 to 16 hours.?

• I notice that you cut 14 hours in half to get 7 hours rather than cutting 16 hour in half. Is there any reason you chose 7 hours?

• What about fast charging?

• I hear a lot about using a five cell receiver pack. What are the advantages of a five cell receiver pack?

• Can I use the charger that came with my radio system to charge a five cell pack?

• What is differential?

• Is differential good or bad?

• Why would you want differential?

• Why wouldn't you want differential?

• What is adverse yaw?

• How can you avoid adverse yaw?

• How can you connect to a servo so there is no differential?

• How can you connect to a servo so that you get more push than pull?

• How can you connect to a servo so that you get more pull than push?

• Which is better for a high wing aircraft?

• Which is better for a low wing aircraft?

• What happens if you connect to a control horn ahead of the hinge line?

• What happens if you connect to a control horn behind the hinge line?

• What happens if you connect to a control horn on the hinge line?

• Which is better for high wing aircraft?

• Which is better for low wing aircraft?

• Which hinge types cause differential and which don't? Why?

• Should I pin my hinges?

• How can I make my own shrink film hinges easily?

• How do you apply them?

• What is the ultimate Electric Flight and Soaring hinge?

• What's the easiest way to use it?

Volume R-4 :

• For under $10 you can make two simple devices that will allow you to:

• Check charging current

• Check charging current

• Check a cycler's discharge current

• Check a cycler's cutoff voltage

• Check the current draw of individual servos

• Check the current draw of your receiver

• Check for binding in your hinges

• Check for bad servos

• Check a transmitter's current draw

• Check for bad cells in a pack

• How to make your own ESV that's far more accurate than anything you can buy?

• How to strain relieve wires when using Sermos connectors

• A complete parts list for making the test harness and ESV

Volume R-5 :

• What are the two most important factors to successful soldering?

• What are the warning signs that a wire might be hard or impossible to solder?

• What is flux?

• What forms does it come in?

• What's the difference between resin and rosin type fluxes?

• What kind of flux should never be used?

• Why should you use paste flux?

• What solder alloy should you use?

• What do the numbers 60/40 mean?

• When should you use silver solder?

• What sizes of solder should you use?

• What kind of soldering iron should never be used?

• What wattage or temperature soldering iron should you use?

• What size wire should be used for which applications?

• Is 12g wire bigger or smaller than 22g wire?

• How can you make your own holding fixture that's as good or better than anything you can buy?

• Where, when and how should you apply the heat from the soldering iron?

• How do you know when the soldering iron is hot enough?

• How do you keep the tip clean?

• What are the two simple soldering exercises that will make you an expert in no time?

Volume R-6:

• What's the right way to splice wires?

• What's the easy way to splice wires?

• What does "tinning" mean?

• What's the right way and the wrong way to tin a wire?

• What's the right way to splice servo and battery pack leads?

• What's the easier way to splice servo and battery pack leads?

• What are the two reasons you should use heat shrink tubing?

• When don't you have to use heat shrink tubing?

• How do you make a jig for soldering Deans connectors?

• Why do you do it that way?

• How should the Deans connector be oriented in the jig and why?

• What is the "secret" to soldering Deans connectors?

• How much solder should you use and where?

• When and where should you use heat shrink tubing with Deans connectors?

• What is the correct wire placement for a Deans connector and why?

• How should you solder a Sermos connector?

• Which way will solder flow and why?

• What size solder should you use?

• How much solder should you use and how do you know when you've used the right amount?

• How should you solder an Astro connector?

• How is it different from a Sermos connector?

• How do you solder motor terminals?

• When and where should you use heat shrink tubing?

• How should you solder pushrod ends?

• Where should you apply the heat and why?

• Where and when should you apply the solder?

• How do you solder landing gear?

• How is it different than other soldering jobs?

• How do you solder components to an electronic circuit board?

• How do you keep the components in place while you're soldering them?

• Where and when do you apply the heat and the solder?

• How shouldn't you solder battery packs together?

• What's the "trick" to making it easier?

• What is soldering braid?

• How do you unsolder something?

• Where and when should you apply the heat?

• What are the seven keys to successful soldering?

Volume R-7 :

• Why would you need a higher capacity battery pack?

• Why wouldn’t you need a higher capacity battery pack?

• What size range is generally the best to use?

• Other than capacity, why else wouldn’t you want to use a standard size battery pack on a Giant Scale aircraft?

• What does the internal impedance of the pack have to do with your pack choice?

• How low a voltage is too low?

• What charge rate should you use?

• Can you extend the charge time to make up for a charger that doesn’t charge at a high enough rate?

• Why shouldn’t you use a "peak detection" charger?

• Should you use a 4 or 5 cell pack?

• Why would you want to use a 5 cell pack?

• Why wouldn’t you want to use a 5 cell pack?

• Why don’t 5 cell packs give you more flying time?

• What wire size should you use?

• How should you extend the leads on a battery pack?

• What size wire should be used for servos?

• Which is more important, the battery pack lead or the servo leads? Why?

• Should you ever use an aileron extension to extend a battery pack lead?

• Is there a better type of system switch?

• Why should you only use "slide" switches?

• How can you use double switches?

• What cycler and ESV loads should be used on larger packs?

• Which battery backup systems are best?

• Do you really need one?

• How can I power the receiver from one pack and the servos from a second battery pack?

• What receiver modifications are necessary?

• What size pack should be used to power the receiver?

• What size pack should be used to power the servos?

• How shouldn’t you power accessory items such as smoke pumps and ignition systems?

Volume R-8:

• How to get perfectly trimmed edges every time with shrink film covering materials.

• How control the amount of edge overlap.

• How to always have a sharp edge.

• How to make perfect overlaps with transparent covering materials.

• How to start and finish a cut.

• How not to start a cut.

• How to cut stick stock perfectly every time.

• How to cut angles of 20º to 90º in 1º increments.

• How to make alignment perfect.

• How to make 90º corners every time.

• How to work with both balsa and spruce.

• How to sharpen #11 blades the easy way.

• How should you hold the knife?

• How shouldn’t you hold the knife?

• How do you make cuts that are perfect every time?

• How can you be sure that the blade is at exactly 90º to the work so that you get square edges every time?

• How to make perfect cuts either free hand or with a straight edge.

• How do you deal with CA and epoxy fumes?

• How do you protect yourself from carbon fiber dust?

• Which materials are the most dangerous in the shop?

• What should you do about balsa dust?

Volume R-9:

• What’s the very first step in designing your own aircraft?

• Should you choose a high wing, mid-wing, or low wing design?

• Which is best, when?

• What affect does your choice have on the horizontal stabilizer?

• How do you match the engine or motor size to the size of the aircraft?

• How do you measure wing area?

• Which wing shape is best for a particular type of aircraft? Why?

• What is aspect ratio?

• Why is it important?

• Why would or wouldn’t you want a high or low aspect ratio wing?

• What’s the simple way to calculate the aspect ratio of a wing?

• Which airfoil should you use for a particular aircraft?

• Why would one be better than another?

• What is a "true" Clark-Y airfoil?

• What is dihedral?

• What is polyhedral?

• How much should you or shouldn’t you have?

• Why would you want more or less?

• What is CG and where should it be?

• What does the tail of an aircraft do?

• What kind of airfoil is best for a horizontal stabilizer? Why?

• How large should the tail surfaces be?

• When should they be larger?

• When should they be smaller?

• How large should the rudder be?

• How large should the elevator be?

• How long should the distance be between the wing and the stabilizer?

• How long should it be between the wing and the prop?

• Why would you want these distances to be longer or shorter?

• How do all of these forces relate to one another?

Volume R-10:

• What types of cells and pack construction should not be used for R/C applications?

• When should you use rechargeable cells?

• When shouldn’t you use rechargeable cells?

• What is a "Primary" cell?

• What is a "Secondary" cell?

• How is the capacity of a cell rated and what does it mean?

• When should you use carbon-zinc cells?

• When should you use alkaline cells?

• When should you use lithium cells?

• When should you replace the cells?

• Which type has the most capacity?

• How do the capacities of Primary and Secondary cells compare?

• Which type holds its charge longer?

• How can you lengthen the life of Primary cells?

• Are all lithium cells 3 volts or higher?

• What are the dangers in using lithium cells?

• Are there differences between different types of nickel cadmium cells?

• What’s the right way to charge nickel cadmium cells?

• How long do cells last and how should they be stored?

• Are there any advantages to nickel metal hydride cells?

• Are there any disadvantages to nickel metal hydride cells?

• What are the safety concerns with nickel metal hydride cells?

• How do you test a cell?

• When does a larger cell actually have less capacity?

• Does the name of a cell give an indication of the cell’s capacity?

• What is the RBRC?

• How can cells be recycled?

• How do all the different cell types and sizes compare in capacity?

Volume R-11:

• What do you do if you have many different radio systems and you want to keep track of the battery packs in each of them?

• Would a computer help?

• Is there an easy way to keep track of the packs without learning how to use a database or spread sheet?

• How can you adapt Quicken, Money, or Manage Your Money to the task?

• In detail, what are the step by step things you should do?

• How do I enter information about my battery packs?

• How do I get information back about my battery packs?

• How can I have the computer remind me that my packs should be recycled or charged?

• How can the computer help me spot battery problems before they cost me an aircraft?

• How can I "track" one of my packs?

• How can I track all of my packs?

• For tax purposes, how can I use this system to keep track of the miles I drive for work?

Volume R-12:

• What does a "dot" on a servo mean?

• Should you buy an AM or FM radio system?

• What’s the difference between the two?

• How does a digital proportional radio work?

• What does "PCM" mean?

• How does it work?

• What is "failsafe?"

• What does "PPM" mean?

• Is PCM AM or FM?

• Which channel should you choose?

• What does frequency mean?

• What is a "synthesized" radio?

• How is information sent from the receiver to the servos?

• Is there a better way to store your radio system?

• What is the role of each of the wires going to a servo?

• Are color codes ever wrong?

• How can you reduce the number of wires when you have more than one servo in a particular location?

• Why would you want aileron/rudder coupling?

• Why would you want exponential Rates?

• Why would you want end point adjustment?

• Why would you want total volume control?

• Why would you want mixing?

• Why would you want electronic trims?

• Why would you want multi model memory?

Volume R-13:

• How should you prepare the airframe for covering?

• What is the secret to preparing the airframe so that the covering will stay tight?

• What are the two basic rules that determine how overlapping pieces of covering material should be positioned?

• How do you make sure fuel won’t be able to get under the covering?

• What part of the wing should be covered first?

• How do you cover the trailing edge?

• Should you try to cover the entire wing at one time? Why?

• How much should pieces of covering material overlap?

• What kind of tools do you need to do a good job?

• In what order should you tack the covering to the wing?

• Why is it important to do it this way?

• What is the secret to a wrinkle free job?

• What specific way should the tacking iron be used to avoid wrinkles?

• How do you cover the tip of the wing?

• What’s the right way to shrink the covering after it’s tacked to the wing?

• How do you get the temperature of the tacking iron and hot air gun right?

• How do you cover ailerons, rudders, and elevators so that they are totally sealed and look great?

• What’s different about covering a fuselage?

• Why is it important to cover the parts of the fuselage in a specific order?

• What is that order?

• What tip makes it so much easier to cover a fuselage?

• What’s the little known way to cut the pieces of covering material to the right size?

• How are hatches covered?

Volume R-14:

R/C Flight Teaching Techniques

• What should "ground school" include?

• What’s the easy way to know if it’s too windy to fly?

• Which aircraft make the best trainers?

• What characteristics should it have?

• How can you improve the visibility of the aircraft?

• Which colors should be avoided?

• Which are best?

• What is the best way to hold the transmitter’s sticks?

• Why is it better to do it that way?

• How do you avoid disorientation?

• What are the two tricks that will make it much easier to stay oriented to the aircraft?

• What simple test should you run before every flight?

• What is the secret to easy dead stick landings?

• What are the do’s and don’ts of dead stick landings?

• Why is preflighting an aircraft important?

• What points must be covered in the preflight inspection?

• What is the right and wrong way to range check an aircraft?

• How should you ask for help at the field?

• Why are left turns easier to make than right turns?

• Are they really?

• What simple techniques will help you to learn how to fly much more quickly?

• What techniques make turns easier?

• What techniques make straight flight easier?

• What simple techniques will help you to learn how to land much more quickly?

• What are the keys to successful takeoffs?

• What simple technique should you follow just before landing?

Volume R-15:

• What are the three types of ignition systems and what type of fuel does each system use?

• What causes ignition in each of the systems?

• What’s different about a magneto?

• What makes a glow plug different?

• What voltage and capacity do you need for a typical solid state ignition system?

• How does internal impedance affect the choice of pack?

• What size pack do you need for Old Timer spark ignition systems?

• When can you parallel cells in a pack?

• What’s the difference between a 2 stroke and 4 stroke glow plug?

• What’s the trick that will allow you to use a 2 stroke plug in a 4 stroke engine?

• What’s the advantage?

• How can you cut your current draw in half with 4 stroke engines?

• What about the idle bar?

• How can you make your own low profile, inexpensive, glow plug connector?

Volume R-16:

• Building materials that kill or hurt you
  
  
• CA glues
  
  
• Epoxy glues and paints
  
  
• MEK
  
  
• Carbon Fiber
  
  
• Balsa
  
  
• Foam
  
  
• PVC
  
  
• Catalyzed paints
  
  
• NiMh cells
  
  
• Lithium cells
  
  
• Tools that can kill or hurt you
  
  
• Drill press
  
  
• Soldering iron
  
  
• Files
  
  
• Razor blades
  
  
• Wire cutters
  
  
• Gas flight do's and don'ts
  
  
• Gas cans and pumps
  
  
• Glow battery leads
  
  
• Props
  
  
• Electric flight do's and don'ts
  
  
• How to lose a finger
  
  
• Fuses
  
  
• Arming switches
  
  
• Testing speed controls
  
  
• Short circuits
  
  
• Radio systems
  
  
• Safety in the Shop
  
  
• Material disposal
  
  
• Battery leads
  
  
• Respirators
  
  
• Isolated power supplies
  
  
• Safety at the field
  
  
• Buddy system
  
  
• ESV's
  
  
• When to go home
  
  
• Transmitters and receivers
  
  
• The proper preflight and range check

Volume R-17:

• What is adverse yaw?

• How do you correct for it?

• What causes a spin?

• How do you prevent a spin from happening?

• How can you use flaps to lower your stall speed?

• What's the disadvantage of flaperons?

• What's the advantage of spoilerons?

• What is the "crow" technique?

• Why does it work well for spot landings and losing a lot of altitude, without increasing your airspeed?

Volume R-18:

• Why are wing warps a problem?

• What's the disadvantage of flat bottom airfoils?

• How can you make a steel rod building jig?

• How do you drill holes in the ribs at the correct position and diameter?

• What is "CompuFoil 98" and why is it so useful?

• What is "See Temp" and why is it great for building ribs?

• What are the benefits to using carbon fiber tubes rather than steel rods?

Volume R-19:

• What is a Buddy Box?

• Why is the Buddy Box so useful in teaching R/C Flight?

• Why is it a good rule to have both transmitters be the same brand?

• Why is in important to use a check list before you fly?
   

• Before you fly, what do you check for in:

• Control surfaces, pushrods, clevises and keepers

• Fuselage

• Landing gear and wheels

• Radio installation

• Wings

• CG location

• Firewall, motor mount, engine, prop and prop nut

• Channel clarity and availability

• Control surfaces

• Engine
   

• R-19 includes a "New Aircraft Pre-Flight Checklist" and a "First Flight of the Day Checklist"

Volume R-20:

• What are the most likely reasons for an engine to not be  getting fuel and what are some ways to correct them?

• Why does your engine need air and what do you do if it isn't getting any?

• Why does your engine need compression?

• What do you need for a glow plug to glow?

• Why is just cranking the engine NOT the best way to start it and what is a better way?

• How do you "hand prop" an engine?

• What are "chicken sticks"?

• What do you look for if your engine won't start?

• How do you adjust the high end throttle mixture and the low end idle mixture?

• How do you properly install an engine?

• What's the right way to adjust your servo throws for high and low throttle?

• What are some tricks for "winter starts"?

• How do you break in a new engine?