Dynamics of Flight Stability and Control

Description

The first edition of this book appeared in 1959-indeed before most students reading this were born. It was well received both by students and practicing aeronautical engineers of that era. The pace of development in aerospace engineering during the decade that followed was extremely rapid, and this was reflected in the subject of flight mechanics. The first author therefore saw the need at the time for a more advanced treatment of the subject that included the reality of the round rotating Earth and the real unsteady atmosphere, and hypersonic flight, and that reflected the explosive growth in computing power that was then taking place (and has not yet ended!). The result was the 1972 volume entitled Dynamics of Atmospheric Flight. That treatment made no concessions to the needs of undergraduate students, but attempted rather to portray the state of the art of flight mechanics as it was then. To meet the needs of students, a second edition of the 1959 book was later published in 1982. This edition improves on its predecessors in several ways. It uses a real jet transport (the Boeing 747) for many numerical examples and includes exercises for students to work in most chapters. Authors learned from a survey of teachers of this subject that the latter was a sine qua non. Working out these exercises is an important part of acquiring skill in the subject. Moreover, some details in the theoretical development have been moved to the exercises, and it is good practice in analysis for the students to do these. Students taking a course in this subject are assumed to have a good background in mathematics, mechanics, and aerodynamics, typical of a modem university course in aeronautical or aerospace engineering. Consequently, most of this basic material has been moved to appendices so as not to interrupt the flow of the text. Introduction Static Stability and Control-Part 1 Static Stability and Control-Part 2 General Equations of Unsteady Motion The Stability Derivatives Stability of Uncontrolled Motion Response to Actuation of the Controls-Open Loop Closed-Loop Control