Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This book is in many ways a companion volume to the same author's Fundamentals of Fighter Design. The development of airliners is covered topically rather than in a narrative form and includes subdivisions like Aerodynamics, Propulsion, Stability and Control, and Structures and Materials which are common to the sister volume in form though not entirely in content. In addition there are sections on Airline Growth and Economics, Flying Boats, Passanger Cabins, Supersonic Transports and Flying-wing Airliners that are unique to this book. The level of presentation is descriptive and technical with a liberal use of charts and graphs and a miniumum use of formulae. One small critisicm is the lack of reference to figures in the text although this usually can be figured out.
In any text of this sort there are matters of choice to be made and one choice the author made is to virtually ignore the role of avionics in airliner operation whereas in Fundamentals of Fighter Design there is an entire chapter devoted to it. On the other hand, there is a very complete and clearly heart felt discussion of fatigue design high lighting the safe life and fail safe concepts. After reading this section you may never want to fly in a vintage airplane without making sure your life insurance is paid up!
From the point of view of a technically aware layperson who might want to know more about why an airliner he or she flies in is the way it is, I would certainly recommend this as one of the best single books to be found. From the point of view of a practicing engineer in another discipline this is an interesting introduction to the application of a different one. From the point of view of a historian this is a good background to understand how everything functionally fits together in an airliner though the lack of bibliographical reference makes it of limited utility in pieceing together a historical, cause and effect based narrative.
In summary, though not for everyone, this would be a worthwhile addition to the library of any aviation interested person and I am certainly glad to own it.
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Commercial air travel has come a long way since the first purpose-built airliners took to the sky soon after World War I. Countless innovations have enabled aircraft to fly higher, faster, and more efficiently, and flights have become more comfortable and cheaper. This important book, based on a well-received series of articles in Air International magazine, offers an unparalleled insight into the way that the airliner has evolved and how each new breakthrough and refinement has affected the industry and the future path of development.
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