Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Aircraft Design

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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This is an updated edition of Nicolai's 1975 publication. I personally feel that it will equal Raymer's Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach (Aiaa Education Series), which is the current reigning collegiate aircraft design publication. The book is well written and even presents a section design propeller-driven aircraft. He has an extensive section on structural design and analysis. I am planning on adopting this book for our senior aircraft design course.

This book comes in two volumes. The book you see is Volume 1 which is devoted to Aircraft Design only. Airship Design is supposedly covered in Volume 2 which I have been unable to locate. The AIAA says it is unavailable. Does that mean it hasn't been published yet or just that they didn't have one to send me? If any of you find out, please let me know. Volume 1 is an excellent 900-page book with about 200 pages of appendices. Volume 2 promises several Case Studies which I am most interested in.

We use this book for our senior design class at The University of Texas at Arlington, this book is sold through AIAA also, it is a well organized and structured book for a student and even graduates who are looking for reference books. This books focuses on physical and technical understanding required for designing an aircraft with a little bit of historical background. This book also includes some color photos and graphs, I would recommend buying this book.

Though surpassed by newer texts on the subject (such as Raymer's, which seems to summarize a lot of older references), Nicolai's book gives some background theory in aircraft design in a very readable format. Not recomended for the mathematically challenged and lacks a good index but is a good read nonetheless.