Читать книгу Introduction to Flight Testing - James W. Gregory - Страница 12

The field of aerospace is multidisciplinary and wide‐ranging, covering a large variety of platforms, disciplines, and domains, not merely in engineering but in many related supporting activities. These combine to enable the aerospace industry to produce innovative and technologically advanced vehicles. The wealth of knowledge and experience that has been gained by expert practitioners in the various aerospace fields needs to be passed onto others working in the industry and also researchers, teachers, and the student body in universities.

The Aerospace Series aims to be a practical, topical, and relevant series of books aimed at people working in the aerospace industry, including engineering professionals and operators, engineers in academia, and allied professions such as commercial and legal executives. The range of topics is intended to be wide‐ranging, covering design and development, manufacture, operation and support of aircraft, as well as topics such as infrastructure operations and current advances in research and technology.

Flight testing is a vital part of the certification and validation phase of all new aircraft and is performed to determine or verify the performance and handling qualities. Although the flight characteristics are predicted in the design and development stages of new aircraft programs, the real‐world capabilities are not known until the aircraft is flown and tested. Most aircraft flight testing programs are focused on meeting airworthiness certification requirements and demonstrate all aspects of the flight vehicle's performance and handling characteristics to ensure flight safety.

This book, Introduction to Flight Testing, is aimed at advanced‐level undergraduate students, graduate students, and practicing engineers who are looking for an introduction to the field of flight testing. With a focus on light aircraft and UAVs, the book covers the engineering fundamentals of flight, including the flight environment, aircraft performance and stability and control, combined with the piloting, sensors, and digital data acquisition and analysis required to perform flight tests. This book is a very welcome addition to the Wiley Aerospace Series.

October 2020 Peter Belobaba, Jonathan Cooper and Allan Seabridge