Customer Reviews

Future Flight: The Next Generation of Aircraft Technology

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

 

 

This edition of "Future Flight" (the second) was published in 1994. Much has happened in the aerospace world in the intervening time, and virtually none of the forward looking predictions made by the authors have come to pass in even general terms, except on an obvious and hugely macro scale such as avionics developing faster than airframe design.

The book itself is an acceptable introduction for very casual readers with little background in aeronautics. It should be skipped by anyone in an aviation profession. Unfortunately I was required to read this book for a graduate class, in what I can only hope was a ghastly textbook selection error by the instructor (I would say this book is comprehensible to suitably inclined junior high school students.) I read the entire book in less than three hours and learned essentially nothing of value from it.

The information is old (the authors still refer to the B-777 in the future tense) and many of the concepts advanced (especially on the civil aircraft side of the house) are pie-in-the-sky concepts, impractical and unfit for the real world (like the cargo plane so huge that it can't land on runways so it will instead land on an air cushion, bizarre flying boats, oblique wing aircraft with wing spans over 500 feet, etc.) Even if these ideas were practical and possible (I believe some are possible, but none are practical) the market for such aircraft would be so small as to render them commercially untenable.

My bottom line appraisal of "Future Flight" is that there are a few nuggets of interesting (although common) information in this book, but students or professionals who want a real-world overview of the future of aviation with appropriate technical details need to find another book.

This is required reading for one of my master's classes which is really surprising because this book is written for the casual reader. The last edition was in 1994, making much of the technology written about either obsolete or some of it was just experimental/theory. It is a quick read that should only take a few hours. Recommended only for those who must use it for class or simply like odd coffe table collectibles.

This book seems to be written with the curious in mind. It's a good introduction into the field. the only complaint I have about this book is the lack of a bibliography.