Radio controlled models come in various shapes, sizes, and descriptions from race cars to off road trucks and from boats to planes and helicopters for indoors and larger models for outdoors.
These models are often referred to as just RC (meaning radio control) but some people still refer to them as remote control.
Some of the more serious RC hobbyists insist that the models are "Radio Controlled" and do not like you to call them "Remote Controlled" because remote control can be used to refer to a toy car for example with a trailing wire to a control.
The higher end spec of RC models run into the several hundreds of dollars and are much more than just toys.
There are racing cars designed for speed and there are cars designed for off road.
The off road versions usually have more chunky tires.
RC models can be powered in a few different ways, some are battery powered, some are nitro powered.
Nitro cars and other nitro models run on a mixture of nitro, methanol and oil.
While electric models powered by rechargeable batteries and it used to be that they were usually not as fast as the nitro versions, but this has changes a bit now and some battery models are very quick.
The battery powered models are more cheap to buy and need less servicing.
In a nitro powered model you must consider that there are other components to maintain such as the air filter, carburetor and fuel filter to name just a few.
With battery powered models it is quicker to power up, by that I mean it is quicker to swap a battery pack than it is to refuel your nitro model so those are a few key facts to help decide when choosing between a battery powered model or a nitro powered model.
Some hobbyist prefer to build their own model from a kit while some just like to buy them ready assembled.
When choosing an RC glider, plane or Helicopter there are a few point to remember.
Airborne models are harder to learn to control at first so make sure you have plenty of space to to fly, you don't want to be crashing your expensive model into a tree like I have done before now! With RC helicopters there are very small and very low cost models suitable for use indoors and then there are very expensive models used for outdoors, you can even get helicopters and planes ready assembled with built in cameras for photography and videos from the air, and you can also buy hobby cams for this purpose and install them into your existing model at home.
Then there are RC boats, I won't go into much detail about them here other than to say they come in all shapes and sized and are usually nitro powered.
The radio controlled model hobby is becoming increasing popular and there are clubs and race tracks popping up all over the place.
It has become a popular pastime for boys, girls, men and women of all ages.