2007
Fundamentals of Airplane Flight Mechanics Authors:

• David G. Hull
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ISBN: 978-3-540-46571-3 (Print) 978-3-540-46573-7 (Online)

About this textbookAirplane flight mechanics is the application of Newton's laws to the study of airplane trajectories (performance), stability, and aerodynamic control. This text is limited to flight in a vertical plane and is divided into two parts. The first part, trajectory analysis, is concerned primarily with the derivation of analytical solutions of trajectory problems associated with the sizing of commercial jets, that is, take-off, climb, cruise, descent, and landing, including trajectory optimization. The second part, stability and control, is further classified as static or dynamic. On each iteration of airplane sizing, the center of gravity is placed so that the airplane is statically stable. Dynamic stability and control is included to study the response of an airplane to control and gust inputs, which is needed for the design of automatic flight control systems. Algorithms are presented for estimating lift, drag, pitching moment, and stability derivatives.
Flight mechanics is a discipline. As such, it has equations of motion, acceptable approximations, and solution techniques for the approximate equations of motion. Once an analytical solution has been obtained, numbers are calculated in order to compare the answer with the assumptions used to derive it and to acquaint students with the sizes of the numbers. A subsonic business jet is used for these calculations.

Table of contents Introduction to Airplane Flight Mechanics.- 3DOF Equations of Motion.- Atmosphere, Aerodynamics, and Propulsion.- Cruise and Climb of an Arbitrary Airplane.- Cruise and Climb of an Ideal Subsonic Airplane.- Take-off and Landing.- PS and Turns.- 6DOF Model: Wind Axes.- Static Stability and Control.- 6DOF Model: Body Axes.- Dynamic Stability and Control

From the reviews:
"The text under review addresses performance, stability, and control (static and dynamic) characteristics of aircraft from the viewpoint, according to the author, of a one semester, junior-level course on these topics. … It is readable, at an appropriate level for undergraduates … . It is also a good choice to help a more experienced person to come up to speed on basic flight mechanics. I certainly recommend it for these situations." (Keith Koenig, SIAM Review, Vol. 49 (4), 2007)
"There are two basic problems in airplane mechanics: (1) given an airplane, what are its performance, stability and control characteristics? and (2) given performance, stability and control characteristics, what is the airplane? The book is concerned with the first problem, but its organization is motivated by the structure of the second problem. … The book is not only a very good educational tool, but also a competent research exposition monograph, and it is recommended to students and researchers in flight mechanics." (Adrian Carabineanu, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1126 (3), 2008)