Design Of Light Aircraft

Easy-to-follow, step-by-step methods to lay out, analyse, and optimise your new homebuilt aircraft concept; Industry methods distilled to the essence, and written in a straight forward, easy-to-read style; No derivations, proofs, or complicated equations. Every step is illustrated with an all-new design example that is followed through from beginning to end.

Some have said that if God had wanted us to fly, He would have given us wings. And yet, we were given the ability to dream, to think with our heads, to have courage in our hearts, and to build with our hands. Truly, we have been given everything we need: We really can fly on our own wings! Chris Heintz is a professional aeronautical engineer with a prolific career spanning over 40 years designing and building light aircraft. Recognized worldwide as a uniquely talented and accomplished designer, his aircraft are known and appreciated for their simplicity of construction, pilot-friendly cabins and controllability as well as remarkable performances. Today, Chris Heintz designs are flown throughout the world, mostly by recreational pilots who have assembled their own planes from a kit. His most popular models are also factory-assembled and sold as ready-to-fly sport aircraft on three continents. In FLYING ON YOUR OWN WINGS, Mr. Heintz shares his knowledge and insights into the art and science of light aircraft design. He “walks” readers through the essential understanding and skills required to conceive, develop, build and even test-fly their own personal light airplane. Basic mathematics, essential aerodynamics and stress analysis are just a few of the chapters of this fascinating book. Heintz even provides a sample design to help would-be designers take their first step towards imagining and creating their own wings. Truly a beginner’s guide to everything you need to know in order to achieve that age-old dream: To fly on your own wings!

Find the right answer the first time with this useful handbook of preliminary aircraft design. Written by an engineer with close to 20 years of design experience, General Aviation Aircraft Design: Applied Methods and Procedures provides the practicing engineer with a versatile handbook that serves as the first source for finding answers to realistic aircraft design questions. The book is structured in an "equation/derivation/solved example" format for easy access to content. Readers will find it a valuable guide to topics such as sizing of horizontal and vertical tails to minimize drag, sizing of lifting surfaces to ensure proper dynamic stability, numerical performance methods, and common faults and fixes in aircraft design. In most cases, numerical examples involve actual aircraft specs. Concepts are visually depicted by a number of useful black-and-white figures, photos, and graphs (with full-color images included in the eBook only). Broad and deep in coverage, it is intended for practicing engineers, aerospace engineering students, mathematically astute amateur aircraft designers, and anyone interested in aircraft design. Organized by articles and structured in an "equation/derivation/solved example" format for easy access to the content you need Numerical examples involve actual aircraft specs Contains high-interest topics not found in other texts, including sizing of horizontal and vertical tails to minimize drag, sizing of lifting surfaces to ensure proper dynamic stability, numerical performance methods, and common faults and fixes in aircraft design Provides a unique safety-oriented design checklist based on industry experience Discusses advantages and disadvantages of using computational tools during the design process Features detailed summaries of design options detailing the pros and cons of each aerodynamic solution Includes three case studies showing applications to business jets, general aviation aircraft, and UAVs Numerous high-quality graphics clearly illustrate the book's concepts (note: images are full-color in eBook only)

Pilots, aviation students, kitplane builders, aircraft fleet operators and aeronautical engineers can all determine how their propeller-driven airplanes will perform, under any conditions, by using the step-by-step bootstrap approach introduced in this book. A few routine flying manoeuvres (climbs, glides, a level speed run) will give the necessary nine numbers. High-school level calculations then give performance numbers with much greater detail and accuracy than many other methods - for the reader's individual aircraft.

The aircraft is only a transport mechanism for the payload, and all design decisions must consider payload first. Simply stated, the aircraft is a dust cover. "Fundamentals of Aircraft and Airship Design, Volume 1: Aircraft Design" emphasizes that the science and art of the aircraft design process is a compromise and that there is no right answer; however, there is always a best answer based on existing requirements and available technologies.