Intended as a comprehensive modern book on the principles and practice of airplane performance prediction suited as a primary text in undergraduate engineering courses.

Based on a 15-year successful approach to teaching aircraft flight mechanics at the US Air Force Academy, this text explains the concepts and derivations of equations for aircraft flight mechanics. It covers aircraft performance, static stability, aircraft dynamics stability and feedback control.

This book discusses aircraft flight performance, focusing on commercial aircraft but also considering examples of high-performance military aircraft. The framework is a multidisciplinary engineering analysis, fully supported by flight simulation, with software validation at several levels. The book covers topics such as geometrical configurations, configuration aerodynamics and determination of aerodynamic derivatives, weight engineering, propulsion systems (gas turbine engines and propellers), aircraft trim, flight envelopes, mission analysis, trajectory optimisation, aircraft noise, noise trajectories and analysis of environmental performance. A unique feature of this book is the discussion and analysis of the environmental performance of the aircraft, focusing on topics such as aircraft noise and carbon dioxide emissions.

Balancing technical material with important historical aspects of the invention and design of aeroplanes, this book develops aircraft performance techniques from first principles and applies them to real aeroplanes.

Describes the principles and equations required for evaluating the performance of an aircraft.

Annotation A design textbook attempting to bridge the gap between traditional academic textbooks, which emphasize individual concepts and principles; and design handbooks, which provide collections of known solutions. The airbreathing gas turbine engine is the example used to teach principles and methods. The first edition appeared in 1987. The disk contains supplemental material. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).