Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach

Winner of the AIAA Summerfield Book Award and the Aviation/Space Writers Association Award of Excellence.

This best-selling textbook presents the entire process of aircraft conceptual design—from requirements definition to initial sizing, configuration layout, analysis, sizing, optimization, and trade studies. Widely used in industry and government aircraft design groups, Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach is also the design text at major universities around the world. A virtual encyclopedia of engineering, it is known for its completeness, easy-to-read style, and real-world approach to the process of design.

SPECIAL FEATURES

•More than 900 pages of design methods, illustrations, tips, explanations, and equations

•Overviews of lofting, subsystems, maintainability, producibility, vulnerability, and stealth

•Concepts and calculation methods for aerodynamics, stability and control, propulsion, structures, weights, performance, and cost

•Coverage of conventional and unconventional design methods, including UAV, canard, tandem wing, C-wing, oblique wing, asymmetrical, multi-fuselage, wing-in-ground-effect, and more

•VTOL, helicopter, spacecraft, launch vehicle, hypersonic, and airship design

•RDSwin software (available at extra cost)

NEW TOPICS

•Advice on how to become an aircraft designer

•Electric aircraft, batteries, fuel cells, and solar cells

•Green airplanes, including biofuels, GTL, hydrogen, methane, and nuclear

•Active aeroelastic wing and advanced tailless concepts

•Enhanced learning materials, including chapter opening summaries with set-the-stage art, descriptive sidebar definitions and tips, and what-we-learned chapter wrap-ups