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.In this sixth edition Dan Raymer has expanded and updated his presentation of fast-moving technologies, added lots of new material, and re-written introductory material to make it even more ‘user-friendly.’ Given the ever-growing importance of electric propulsion, he has added a whole new chapter entitled Electric Aircraft. This presents technologies, design-to guidance, and rules of thumb, and offers electric aircraft performance and sizing equations derived in a format familiar to those designing conventionally-powered airplanes.

This encyclopedic book covers every topic necessary to the understanding of aircraft design. Preliminary sizing, aerodynamics, structures, stability and control, propulsion, configuration layout, performance, cost analysis, and much more are all presented starting from first principles and building to a set of tools allowing the reader to actually do a realistic job of aircraft conceptual design. All topics are presented from the point of view of the aircraft designer, not the specialist in any given topic area.

After 19 chapters detailing the way to design ‘normal’ aircraft, Raymer concludes with four more chapters describing the design of more-exotic flight vehicles including electric aircraft, helicopters, vertical takeoff jets, hypersonic aircraft, launch vehicles, airships, flying wings, forward-swept wings, asymmetric airplanes, and much more. Enjoy!

About the Author