Aircraft Conceptual Design Synthesis means design by fitness-for-purpose. Design engineers can jump off from the point of given parameters and requirements – required performance, payloads and other factors.

This is the first book for the aeronautical designer devoted to guiding the reader through this highly effective conceptual design synthesis process. This forms the procedure for the initial stage of the aircraft design process – the interpretation of a requirement into the preliminary layout. A logical design sequence is developed utilizing original modules to represent propulsion, lift, drag, mass, and performance. Aircraft Conceptual Design Synthesis includes a disk of spreadsheets that provides core data. Unlike existing approaches, the design synthesis method can be applied to novel aircraft concepts.

CONTENTS INCLUDE

• The design process
• Aircraft configuration
• Flight regime and powerplant considerations
• Fuselage layout
• Configuration of the wing
• Basic lift, drag and mass representations
• Performance estimation
• Parametric analysis and optimisation
• Analysis of concept design

“This is an important landmark book and in my view will become a standard by which others will be compared” – Dr E C P Ransom, Kingston University, UK

Denis Howe is an aviation consultant and acknowledged expert in the field of aircraft design. He has spent his career teaching aircraft design at the postgraduate level and has an international reputation and has been involved in a number of actual aircraft designs.