Customer Reviews

Simplified Aircraft Design for Homebuilders

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book provides an excellent introduction to the conceptual design process (sizing and performance estimates) for the homebuilder. It's a bit wordy in places, and some examples are not entirely relevant to the average builder (who, besides the author and Burt Rutan, wants to build an asymmetrical design?). But it was the lack of any detail on load factors or structural analysis that prevented me from giving it 5 stars. If you want to understand the basics of how to size a wing, or calculate stall speed, then this book is an excellent choice.

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 :-)

As an amateur backyard builder attempting to design and build an airplane, I actually got much more out of "Simplified Aircraft Design For Homebuilders" than any of the other aircraft design books, including some extremely expensive volumes that are regularly advertised.

This book is well-written, covering the subject of aircraft design on a basic level that is easily grasped by the average homebuilder/non engineer. It's also gleefully sprinkled with a dash of humor, much like a "design book for Dummies". Dan Raymer goes to great lengths to include the finer details of aircraft design that are so illusive and so very time-consuming and difficult for the amateur to research. This book will actually save you months of frustration and research. It's all here in this one little book.

Professor Raymer has done an excellent job of taking the complex subject of aerodynamics of light aircraft and reduced it to a series of clear illustrations and simplified formulas. His explanations are clear and he is consistent in using the formulas. He also includes a down-loadable spreadsheet to make using the various formulas even easier.
He cautions the user, as most such writers do, that he can accept no responsibility for any aircraft designed using the book's data without his direct participation, but there is a wealth of information about how to optimize a design.
The book is not for the casual reader, but for the person seriously thinking about designing and building a light aircraft, this is most helpful.

You will need math, make no mistake about that. You'll also need to have access to an Excel or OpenOffice spread sheet program. This book will give you an appreciation of the complexity and trade offs of small airplane design. This book covers the aero aspect of airplane design. You'll need lots more mechanical engineering knowledge to actually design the airplane hardware. Mechanical engineering is not covered by this book.

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

I think there are two teachers . One of them tells what he (she) read. Other tells what he (she) has experience. If they teach algebra it doesnt matter which kind teacher. But if they teach how you build an aircraft this time experience is golden. I am a turk. English is not my natural language. I believe I understood. If you dont hear that a turk died because of his own homebuilt aricraft's crashed then you can believe that I understood. thank you.

This book was very helpful, its goal and purpose where mostly fullfilled. It still leaves some items without comprehensive clarification, requiring you to look them up elsewhere, but I have not seen another book that is better. It is a great resource for beginning your design and obtaining good calculations. I will probably be using this book as a reference for years to come in my design and application, and probably after I obtain my engineering degree.

Just excellent- did the basics, was nicely humorous, and gave references and caveats where required and useful. GOod book!

Don't expect to be able to design an aircraft after reading this book. But it is a very good starting point! Actually I would recommend it as the first book to read if you are thinking about designing something.