Book – ‘Understanding Flight’ by David Anderson and Scott Eberhardt

Description

Unlike many books covering the principles involved in the flight of aircraft, this book avoids most of the math and highly esoteric theories in favor of exploring the root concepts behind the principles of flight, using a readable conversational style. For someone interested in learning about aerodynamics and what makes aircraft fly, this would be a good first read to introduce most of the concepts in a meaningful way (without adding an extra layer or three of confusion by trying to simultaneously learn and understand complex mathematical formulas). In fact, nearly all of the math in this book is of the conceptual type… “Newton’s second law says that the force is equal to the mass times acceleration” and so forth. While not delving very deeply into the algebra and calculus used to precisely calculate aircraft performance, this book does a good job of conveying many important principles and putting them into a useful context. The text contains many real-life examples where aircraft utilize the features being discussed, and there are many illustrations and charts to further enhance understanding. There are also many sidebars with interesting historical “factoids” relating to the topic at hand. The authors even manage to debunk quite a few very common misconceptions and demonstrations incorrectly attributed to Bernoulli’s principle.

Written by David F. Anderson and Scott Eberhardt, Copyright 2001. ISBN 0-07-136377-7. Published by McGraw-Hill. 256 Pages, Softcover.

Chapters include:

Introduction 1. Basic concepts Airplane nomenclature The airplane Airfoils and wings Axes of control The turn The four forces Mach number Kinetic energy Air pressures The Pitot tube Venturi and throat Wrapping it up 2. How airplanes fly The popular description of lift The mathematical description of lift The physical description of lift Newton’s three laws The Coanda effect Viscosity and lift Lift on a wing Downwash Does the earth support the airplane? The adjustment of lift Angle of attack The wing as a scoop for air Putting it all together Power Induced power Parasitic power The power curve The effect of load on induced power Drag The wing’s efficiency for lift The physics of efficiency Lift requires power Wing vortices Circulation Flight of insects Ground effect Wrapping it up 3. Wings Airfoil selection Wing incidence and camber Wing thickness Leading edge Wing planforms Wing loading Aspect ratio Sweep Taper Twist Wing configuration Dihedral High wings vs. low wings Cowling saves the Boeing 737 Wingtip designs Winglets Canards Boundary-layer turbulence Ice on a wing Boundary-layer turbulence Form drag The golf ball Vortex generators High-lift devices Flaps Slots and slates Deflected slipstream and jet wash Wrapping it up 4. Stability and Control Static stability Longitudinal stability Stability of a symmetric wing Balance The horizontal stabilizer Trim Flying wings Horizontal stabilizer sizing Directional stability Dynamic stability Phugoid motion Dutch roll Spiral instability Stability augmentation Handling Fly-by-wire Wrapping it up

5. Airplane Propulsion It’s Newton again Thrust Power Efficiency Propellers Multibladed propellers Propeller pitch Piston engines The turbine engine Compressors Burners Turbines The turbojet Jet engine power and efficiency The turbofan The turboprop Thrust reversers Thrust vectoring Thrust augmentation Wrapping it up 6. High-speed flight Mach number Lift is still a reaction force Compressible air Shock waves Wave drag and power Transonic flight Wing sweep Area rule Hypersonic flight Skin Heating Wrapping it up 7. Airplane performance Lift-to-drag ratio Lift-to-drag ratio from the engineer’s perspective Glide Out of fuel Indicated airspeed Takeoff performance Climb Ceiling Fuel consumption Maximum endurance Maximum range Turns Stall speed limit Structural strength limit Propulsive power limit Standard-rate turns Landing Wrapping it up 8. Aerodynamic testing Wind-tunnel testing Subsonic wind tunnels Closed-circuit tunnels Wind-tunnel data Supersonic venturis Supersonic wind tunnels Hypersonic testing Flight testing Flight instrument calibration The standard day Power required Power required data Takeoff and landing Climbing and turning Flight test accidents Wrapping it up Appendix Misapplications of Bernoulli’s principle Index