I unfortunately don't have any money tied up in Martin Simons' book, Model Aircraft Aerodynamics Fourth Edition, but, I would recommend that most folks who come here would love to have a copy. It presents very accurate but easy to understand concepts of aerodynamics. I am impressed and I am not that easy to impress anymore.

Buy it, you'll like it.

I like it too. Nice balance of reading & math. But it (typically) made me think of new questions. Like for example this one (hint, hint)..

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/elip...2693821/tm.htm

I have had this book for some time and it has been great. Probably the best reference I know.
However, I would take exception to his writings on canards, in particular determining cg. Otherwise, a must-have book for anyone scratch designing.
Allan

Allan,

So in what way is he wrong on canards.

Graham.

Graham,
Gee it's been a few years but as I remember, the formulas in his book, which are rather complicated with numerous correction factors, yielded a cg location far too rearward for a canard I was building.
It crashed immediately upon takeoff. Next time I used someone else's formulas and had success (after two months of rebuilding!).
I can't remember whether the problem was with the neutral point calculation or the suggested static margin. I seem to remember that the effect of the foreplane was discounted by an upwash factor and this resulted in the np problem. The other issue was the fact that the same formula (with a sign correction) was used for both regular tail-last planes and canards.
I do remember being rather p----- about it though.
Allan