Simplified Aircraft Design for Homebuilders | 
|  | | | Title: | Simplified Aircraft Design for Homebuilders | | Author: | Daniel P. Raymer | | Publisher: | Design Dimension Press | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | October, 2002 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0972239707 / 9780972239707 | | List Price: | $49.95 | | Amazon Price: | $49.95 | |
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| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
Easy to follow, step-by-step methods to lay out, analyze, and optimize your new homebuilt aircraft concept
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Customer Reviews:
• Excellent First Book For Wannabe Homebuilt Aircraft Designers 21 July, 2007
Most aircraft design texts are university textbooks or industry references, and out of hundreds of pages you might find a few dozen that are helpful for the amateur experimental aircraft designer/homebuilder. This book, however, wastes not a single page. After the obligatory "don't blame me if you kill yourself" intro (would sloppy designer/builders read a book like this anyway?), the book gets right down to business.
The first four chapters cover the most important question: "Why?" Why do you want to design an airplane? The answer determines the aircraft configuration, size, wing loading, fuel capacity, etc., and all these items and more are discussed.
Once that's sorted out, Chapter 5 begins the "How", starting with how to actually loft (draw) the overall airplane shape. This chapter has one of the most detailed and useful descriptions of conic and flat-wrap lofting I've seen in any design reference.
Chapter 6 is only a few pages long, discussing crashworthiness and flutter prevention. Important stuff, but basically punted to other references.
In Chapter 7 you analyze your drawing, calculate the basic aerodynamic coefficients and do a preliminary structural design and weight analysis. I commend the author for a halfway-decent overview of structural design--most of the aerodynamically-oriented texts seem to be afraid to touch this topic at all. Chapter 8 continues with range and performance calculations, and finally Chapter 9, titled "Let's Make It Better", covers the inevitable design reiteration when the analysis results indicate that your "How" and your "Why" are miles apart.
Finally, there is a brief but great appendix with useful tables and graphs, such as the weight and horsepower of most of the engines commonly seen on homebuilts and the weight and density of common homebuilt aircraft materials and components.
The foreword by Peter Garrison really summarizes this book nicely: an airplane designer needs to gather a disparate amount of material from a large number of different sources, and this book helps organize that task, and with a particular emphasis on the small planes of interest to the homebuilder.
Hint to this author or others: what I haven't found *anywhere* is a good structures text oriented toward small aircraft design. "Stress Without Tears" isn't bad, but a marriage of Bruhn with Nui's composites book, with a focus on small GA planes, would fill a *huge* hole for amateur designers. To really impress me, include examples of using open source CFD and FEA programs to assist the design effort :-)
- Reviewed by customer ID: A49R5DBXXQDE5
• Great Intro, Easy Read 30 October, 2007
A great intro to engineering your own aircraft. An easy read even for someone like me, who abhors formulas and mathematical equations (even if they are necessary evils in this case). It holds true to its name, so, if you are an engineer, you might want to go for this writer's more complex titles. If you are an ordinary joe like me, who is interested in homebuilt aircraft, this is just right.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A25FJKXNLIFBOQ
• Expensive And Not Much To It 18 June, 2008
Based on the reviews and the author's other book "Aircraft Design, a Conceptual Approach" (which is a must have I think for anyone interested the topic of aircraft design) I was looking forward to this book. Sadly I was not impressed. Maybe I'm "past" the level the book is aimed at, but I found the book very light in content.
Given the rather high cost of this book I can't recomend it to anyone that is serious about designing and building their own airplane. I don't believe after reading it you would be any closer to being able to design you own airplane. You weren't given any real information about aircraft structures, aerodynamics, materials or flight systems. For example wood is totally ignored as a potential materials.
Skip this and consider the book from the author I mentioned earlier (Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach (Aiaa Education Series) or find the series of articles printed in Kitplane Magazine written by Donald R Crawford Airplane Design: A Series of Articles Printed First in Kitplanes Magazine
- Reviewed by customer ID: A377E8XCLV802I
• Simplified Aircraft Design For Homebuilders 27 February, 2008
This book is very well written and is a great foundation for further study. I am very happy that I bought it. Ever since I was a kid jumping off the roof with home made wings I have been looking for a book like this one. I have gone through a lot of books since then. No other book I have ever found covers the basics of aircraft design so well. For me, the best part is that the author steers the reader in the right direction to continue studying areas the reader may be interested in learning more about. Buy this book!
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3MIAOB2FAUGWH
• Excellent Introduction, Very Easy To Read 16 November, 2007
This is another my favorite introduction-type book. Very useful from homebuilder's and pilot's point of view. The book is also written in so interesting way that it is hard to not to read it from cover to cover in one evening. After receiving the book, I was totally hooked and lost some sleeping time because of the book. Highly recommended. The topics do not go to very advanced level, so EADS-engineers developing fairings to A380 tail section don't bother. But if you are a homebuilder and into aircraft design and want to learn what it is all about, this is a good place to start from.
- Reviewed by customer ID: ATUDO1K4OPL3S
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