10.1. INTRODUCTION

This section covers the three areas of aerodynamics, airplane performance, and stability and control. Each area is accompanied by a dedicated list of references and nomenclature.

The development of aerodynamic theory started in the early 19th century. There is thus a vast amount of literature available; many of the key publications are included in the aerodynamics reference list. Although early aerodynamic theory often requires certain restrictions to be imposed on the flow field before an analytical solution can be obtained, the end result provides extremely useful information about how the wing geometry governs the airloads. Since the arrival of the computer, many of these analytical methods have been replaced by numerical models, which, although they have a wider applicability, require specialized computer programs to obtain the solution. It is probably fair to say that, at present, these numerical models have now been surpassed by computational fluid dynamics software. The general aim of the aerodynamics sections is to provide various equations which can be used to estimate the airloads produced by an arbitrary wing geometry in either subsonic or supersonic flow. Thus, with only a few exceptions, only analytical aerodynamic models have been described. An attempt has been made to state the applications of each aerodynamic model if appropriate. One big advantage of many analytical models is that solutions can be obtained, for a wide range of airfoils and wings, using spreadsheet software.

Subsections 10.12 to 10.22 give a...