Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Sailplane Design

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book takes you from beginning to end for the fundamental design of sailplanes of any class, although there is much extra information for high performance craft. It shows you how to read polars and graphs such that your aircraft behaves the way you want it to. However, this is not a mechanical design book, and has no information regarding actual construction of the aircraft.

You will not find too many books on sailplane design with updated information (in fact, only this one, and another book from Vittorio Pajno). Fred Thomas has been for years teacher at Braunschweig Technical University, so he has been involved in all modern Braunschweig Akaflieg designs (SB10, SB11, SB13, SB14). He wrote this book to help his Akaflieg pupils to catch the required level, in order to advance in the frontiers of sailplane design, which is the characteristic of all German Technical Schools Akafliegs.

This book is excellent, plenty of information, at aerospace engineering degree level. The only shortcoming is that some areas are not covered enough (i.e. structural design).

Excellent book where the author is capable to present complex aerodynamics in "man on the street" manner.

Data collected and references at the highest level.

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