General Aviation Aircraft Design: Applied Methods and Procedures 1st Edition

I cannot say enough good things about this book. If you have any interest in aircraft conceptual design, there are really 3 books out there that stand out: Gudmundsson's, Raymer's, and Nicolai's. Raymer's and Nicolai's books have been around for a long time and they're both great, but Gudmundsson's book is really special in that it is extremely clear as far as practical procedures are concerned. Every subject is very well-illustrated by examples, plots, diagrams, tables, pictures, etc. Any question you might have, there is a method, an equation, sometimes even the equation's derivation, a plot, a table, a solid reference to get you to the answer without guesswork. Raymer's and Nicolai's books are generally broader but don't always cover things in a consistently deep and meticulous fashion the way Gudmundsson's book does. Also, Raymer's and Nicolai's books lean more on the military side of things (especially Nicolai's), which is great if that is what you are working on, or as a reference to base your work on. But as a student, or a first-time aircraft designer, I suspect that Gudmundsson's book might end up being more helpful to you as a practical everyday tool. If you have the budget and time, get all 3 books. But if you have to start with only ONE book and then expand to the others later as a way to broaden the areas of aircraft design that you want to cover, I think you should start with Gusmundsson's book and grow from there. It's just a more modern take on the subject, plus it cites both Raymer and Nicolai as needed.

This book has saved me hundreds of hours in generating a complete light aircraft preliminary design. It can be read cover to cover, and while the concepts can be quite difficult to grasp, the topics are covered by the author thoroughly and without unneeded complexity. An engineer of any discipline can work through this with enough time invested. The examples are invaluable and can help the dedicated individual create a spreadsheet of design parameters, information, and plots with dependencies before moving on towards detailed design. This book will continue to be a reference for me. If you are at all interested in the preliminary design process or a clean sheet design for an aircraft (specifically homebuilt or 14 CFR Part 23) look no further.Note: There are a few computational, grammatical, and spelling errors. Ask the author for the errata and he will provide it!

This is a very complete book on the subject of Aircraft Design. I find it to be a very good reference with lots of details, better than digging through the various texts I have from my college days. I am currently working through major revisions to an existing aircraft design so the formulas and guidance are put to good use. I have a friend and fellow aircraft builder in Australia who bought the book on my recommendation and he says it is his most valuable resource asd he works through his own unique aircraft design. In his case he does not have the four year degree to back him up but he says the book is easy enough to follow if he makes the effort. This is an excellent text for the serious amateur aircraft designer and would make a suitable text for collage level aircraft design courses.

This is a fantastic compilation of current information on pretty much all aspects of light aircraft design - including cost modeling and the Eastlake cost model - both very hard to find in conventional sources for airplane design. I may write another review after more time with the text, but it looks thorough, with numerous examples. review qualification: I am a 15+ year professional aircraft design engineerOne complaint: After some debate, I bought the hard copy because I like physical books, but found out too late that they printed only in black and white! The online version has very nice colour illustrations.

2nd Review: I am changing my previous evaluation because this book is really very, very good. I had the opportunity to read all pages. Gudmundsson has a quality I like too much: all sources and techniques are described without prejudices related to be considered from an old or modern conception. You have three or more options to estimate some design parameters. Nice to have this book as an option to guide some design classes and conceptual projects.1st Review: I have the impression that this book will be a classical but it is necessary to inform the future readers / customers that the colorful images of the online version does not exist in the printed book (I decided to antecipate my review and this book was rated with 3 stars due to the lack of this information).A complete review will be attached later, after a complete reading.

Only 25 pages in but so far, this book has been a pleasure to read! I thought it would be a dry engineering book and held off reading it for a few weeks, but every sentence is written clearly and concisely. I'm at the project management section (first section), and so far everything written in the book seems to be valuable advice that I wished I would have known before starting some of my other projects. Highly recommend! It looks like a good balance between advice and pure technical knowledge

I'll start with the cons. I assume this is true for every engineering book in kindle format. The pictures are difficult to see on my laptop. There's no way zoom into a picture with a laptop and a lot of important information are displayed on pictures.Pros: I am currently using this for senior design and it is very helpful. This book has more information on wingtips and winglets than Raymer, Roskam, Schuafele, and Nicolai. (With the versions I used at least). It also a section on different tail configurations such as V-tail, Y-tail and other interesting ones. I wish I used this book during the beginning of the school year. I highly recommend this for air design.