Anderson David F., Eberhardt Scott. Understanding Flight

The McGraw-Hill, 2001. 249 p. ISBN10: 0071363777The simplest, most intuitive book on the toughest lessons of flight-addresses the science of flying in terms, explanations, and illustrations that make sense to those who most need to understand: those who fly. Debunks long-rooted misconceptions and offers a clear, minimal-math presentation that starts with how airplanes fly and goes on to clarify a diverse range of topics, such as design, propulsion, performance, high-speed flight, and flight testing. Not-to-be missed insights for pilots, instructors, flight students, aeronautical engineering students, and flight enthusiastsBasic concepts
Airplane nomenclature
The airplane
Airfoils and wings
Axes of control
The turn
The four forces
Mach number
Kinetic energy
Air pressures
The Pitot tube
Venturi and throat
Wrapping it up
How airplanes fly
The popular description of lift
The mathematical description of lift
The physical description of lift
Newton’s three laws
The Coanda effect
Viscosity and lift
Lift on a wing
Downwash
Does the earth support the airplane?
The adjustment of lift
Angle of attack
The wing as a scoop for air
Putting it all together
Power
Induced power
Parasitic power
The power curve
The effect of load on induced power
Drag
The wing’s efficiency for lift
The physics of efficiency
Lift requires power
Wing vortices
Circulation
Flight of insects
Ground effect
Wrapping it up
Wings
Airfoil selection
Wing incidence and camber
Wing thickness
Leading edge
Wing planforms
Wing loading
Aspect ratio
Sweep
Taper
Twist
Wing configuration
Dihedral
High wings vs. low wings
Cowling saves the Boeing
Wingtip designs
Winglets
Canards
Boundary-layer turbulence
Ice on a wing
Boundary-layer turbulence
Form drag
The golf ball
Vortex generators
High-lift devices
Flaps
Slots and slates
Deflected slipstream and jet wash
Wrapping it up
Stability and Control
Static stability
Longitudinal stability
Stability of a symmetric wing
Balance
The horizontal stabilizer
Trim
Flying wings
Horizontal stabilizer sizing
Directional stability
Dynamic stability
Phugoid motion
Dutch roll
Spiral instability
Stability augmentation
Handling
Fly-by-wire
Wrapping it up
Airplane Propulsion
It’s Newton again
Thrust
Power
Efficiency
Propellers
Multibladed propellers
Propeller pitch
Piston engines
The turbine engine
Compressors
Burners
Turbines
The turbojet
Jet engine power and efficiency
The turbofan
The turboprop
Thrust reversers
Thrust vectoring
Thrust augmentation
Wrapping it up
High-speed flight
Mach number
Lift is still a reaction force
Compressible air
Shock waves
Wave drag and power
Transonic flight
Wing sweep
Area rule
Hypersonic flight
Skin Heating
Wrapping it up
Airplane performance
Lift-to-drag ratio
Lift-to-drag ratio from the engineer’s perspective
Glide
Out of fuel
Indicated airspeed
Takeoff performance
Climb
Ceiling
Fuel consumption
Maximum endurance
Maximum range
Turns
Stall speed limit
Structural strength limit
Propulsive power limit
Standard-rate turns
Landing
Wrapping it up
Aerodynamic testing
Wind-tunnel testing
Subsonic wind tunnels
Closed-circuit tunnels
Wind-tunnel data
Supersonic venturis
Supersonic wind tunnels
Hypersonic testing
Flight testing
Flight instrument calibration
The standard day
Power required
Power required data
Takeoff and landing
Climbing and turning
Flight test accidents
Wrapping it up
Appendix: Misapplications of Bernoulli’s principle