Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach (Aiaa Education Series)

There are several stages to aircraft design. This book covers the first stage, conceptual design, which aims to find the best possible configuration for the aircraft prior to designing the aircraft in detail. Arriving at this final design involves several layers of complexity. Initially the process involves creating several simple designs and performing a brief evaluation of their performance. This allows the designer to select the best design and develop the design to the point where it can be `fixed' and sent to the specialists who will design the individual parts for manufacture. The conceptual designer needs to be a jack of all trades, he needs to understand all of the issues, but he doesn't need to be an expert in any of them. For this reason this book is makes it a great reference for people like me with a general interest. It gives an excelent overview of aircraft design, but doesn't go into fine detail.

This is an interesting and enlightening book (or rather tome) on aircraft design by a very knowledgeable author who knows what to say and how to say it. This is among the best books on the market dealing with aircraft design and is well written in a clear and easy to understand and follow format for those studying aeronautical engineering and design. It is also an excellent reference guide for aircraft design professionals. This is a comprehensive book covering all the major topics in aircraft design including mission definition, initial sizing, structural and aerodynamics design, weight estimation, configuration layout, performance analysis and estimates. The author reinforces his teaching with tips, illustrations, explanations and equations and provide essential data for aircraft design. Overally, an excellent book that is well worth investing in.

5 Stars. Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach, by Daniel P. Raymer, is an outstanding book on the aircraft design process. Well organized and well written, the book clearly defines the three principle stages of aircraft design, and covers the conceptual design stage at length. Starting from the aircraft mission definition, Raymer presents a rational, methodical approach to aircraft design. Emphasis is placed on sizing, weight estimation, and early handling and performance estimates. This approach is supported with historical and statistical data summarizing trends in previous successful designs (and a few failed ones). Although the book includes effective overviews of aerodynamics, stability and control, and structural analysis, the nitty-gritty details of these subjects are left -- as they should be -- for more specialized texts. The focus of this text (as it should be) is entirely on design, with particular emphasis on conceptual design. Preliminary and detailed design are touched upon, but largely left for other texts. Overall, this is a great book for aeronautical/aerospace students and practitioners alike.

This is an excellent, and for the time being the authoratative, book about aircraft design. For anyone who wants to become an aerospace engineer reading a book like this should put any type of work they'll do in the proper context. The best part of this book is that it is split into two halves. The frist half talks specifically about aircraft design from a practical level, covering topics like wing planform selection, thrust to weight and wing loading determination, engine sizing, landing gear configuraiton, etc. This is the applied, design oriented type of knowledge and thinking that all engineers need and is unfortunately not being taught by most schools, albeit it is of course specific to aircraft. (My college had just one ten week aircraft design course over an entire four year curriculum. The course was offered in two sections. Only one of the sections even had this book on the reading list, and then didn't even use it in class!) The second half delves into the analytical methods that are used to "size" different parts of the aircraft, such as methods to predict drag (for engine thrust in cruise), to predict downwash both subsonically and supersonically (effects total lift and stability and control), to determine rough sizes of beam and torsion members of the structure, to size the control surfaces for stability and control, etc. There's also a good interlude where the author gives us a step-by-step example of how you could do conceptual design. (This is not the ONLY way to do conceptual design, but it's important to have SOME method and this is a great introduction to one.) It also has two good example designs in the appendix, plus LOTS of good reference data throughout the book. This is the type of book that should be read first by anyone involved with aircraft design and/or research and development so that they can understand the big picture framework of how aircraft are generally configured.

Mr. Raymer has managed to explain a very complicated process in a way that is both understandable and interesting. Conceptual aircraft design (i.e., starting with nothing but a set of performance criteria to be met) is a multi-variable problem in which the value of most of the variables depend on other variables. The solution of such problems require initial approximations with subsequent iterations. Mr. Raymer explains the conceptual design process, gives historic values used for first approximations and makes good use of actual examples. Two conceptual designs, one a homebuilt aerobatic aircraft and the other a supersonic fighter, are provided in the Appendix to illustrate the procedures described in the book. I found the book interesting both in subject matter and writing style. Although written as a college textbook, the use of actual aircraft to illustrate various points and the author's obvious desire to be precise about his descriptions makes the book easy to follow and fun to those interested in the subject.