Find the right answer the first time with this useful handbook of preliminary aircraft design. Written by an engineer with close to 20 years of design experience, General Aviation Aircraft Design: Applied Methods and Procedures provides the practicing engineer with a versatile handbook that serves as the first source for finding answers to realistic aircraft design questions. The book is structured in an "equation/derivation/solved example" format for easy access to content. Readers will find it a valuable guide to topics such as sizing of horizontal and vertical tails to minimize drag, sizing of lifting surfaces to ensure proper dynamic stability, numerical performance methods, and common faults and fixes in aircraft design. In most cases, numerical examples involve actual aircraft specs. Concepts are visually depicted by a number of useful black-and-white figures, photos, and graphs (with full-color images included in the eBook only). Broad and deep in coverage, it is intended for practicing engineers, aerospace engineering students, mathematically astute amateur aircraft designers, and anyone interested in aircraft design. - Organized by articles and structured in an "equation/derivation/solved example" format for easy access to the content you need - Numerical examples involve actual aircraft specs - Contains high-interest topics not found in other texts, including sizing of horizontal and vertical tails to minimize drag, sizing of lifting surfaces to ensure proper dynamic stability, numerical performance methods, and common faults and fixes in aircraft design - Provides a unique safety-oriented design checklist based on industry experience - Discusses advantages and disadvantages of using computational tools during the design process - Features detailed summaries of design options detailing the pros and cons of each aerodynamic solution - Includes three case studies showing applications to business jets, general aviation aircraft, and UAVs - Numerous high-quality graphics clearly illustrate the book's concepts (note: images are full-color in eBook only)

The official FAA guide to maintenance methods, techniques, and practices essential for all pilots and aircraft maintenance...

Fatigue of the pressurized fuselages of transport aircraft is a significant problem all builders and users of aircraft have to cope with for reasons associated with assuring a sufficient lifetime and safety, and formulating adequate inspection procedures. These aspects are all addressed in various formal protocols for creating and maintaining airworthiness, including damage tolerance considerations. In most transport aircraft, fatigue occurs in lap joints, sometimes leading to circumstances that threaten safety in critical ways. The problem of fatigue of lap joints has been considerably enlarged by the goal of extending aircraft lifetimes. Fatigue of riveted lap joints between aluminium alloy sheets, typical of the pressurized aircraft fuselage, is the major topic of the present book. The richly illustrated and well-structured chapters treat subjects such as: structural design solutions and loading conditions for fuselage skin joints; relevance of laboratory test results for simple lap joint specimens to riveted joints in a real structure; effect of various production and design related variables on the riveted joint fatigue behaviour; analytical and experimental results on load transmission in mechanically fastened lap joints; theoretical and experimental analysis of secondary bending and its implications for riveted joint fatigue performance; nucleation and shape development of fatigue cracks in riveted longitudinal lap joints; overview of experimental investigations into the multi-site damage for full scale fuselage panels and riveted lap joint specimens; fatigue crack growth and fatigue life prediction methodology for riveted lap joints; residual strength predictions for riveted lap joints in a fuselage structure. The major issues of each chapter are recapitulated in the last section.