The Corsec Omni-stand range of products are also quite nice.
Darryl (Buckeye) already linked to I-94.
You should also shop around Fight's On.
If you go with AIM stands, get the thicker bases. The thin ones tend to warp and the resin can crack or break. The thicker ones are far more durable.
If you go with larger scale planes (1/144), you will probably want heavier bases on your stands than the stock pieces from any air gaming accessories company. My CY6 group uses 1/144 planes, and struggled with this problem for a while – most of our 1/144 collections are plastic gashopon models, which are nice and light, but inevitably a lot of metal planes have crept into our collections, usually because it was the only model of a particular aircraft available in the scale. A 25" telescoping rod with a metal plane on top is a very tall and teetery lever arm. We each came up with our own solutions.
The easiest solution I found was to buy the Corsec stands and glue big steel washers to the bottom of the bases (with superglue or Gorilla glue). Unfortunately washers are opaque, so the clear Corsec stands are pointless if you do this.
The AIM stands have cast-in holes for pennies so you can glue in weights. This should be sufficient to counterbalance plastic or resin planes, but metal planes might be a bit too much topweight at 12" or more height. There's no reason you couldn't glue a washer or three underneath one of these too.
One member of our group ordered custom bases from TAP Plastics – 3" clear acrylic hexes, about 1/2" thick, with a pre-drilled centerhole for the the screw that holds the telescoping rod. I'm sure that was costly, but we use these all the time, they seem to be heavy enough to counterweight the airplanes, and it's really nice that you can see the gaming mat through them. I have seriously considered copying his design.
With the exception of those clear acrylic hexes, I recommend against crafting your own. It may seem cheaper, but it's a poor use of crafting time, and in the end the failed experiments cost more money than the field-tested off-the-shelf solutions on the market. I went that route, gluing/brazing stacks of washers to make heavily weighted custom stands to which I attached Corsec telescoping rods, dials and dial indicators. They work fine and I'm not going back, but I wouldn't do it again.
- Ix
paints up some WWII Soviet aircraft.
