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Raymer says: The best overall book for practical S&C estimation, and has many of the key DATCOM charts useful for aero and S&C calculations. It also has the huge S&C equations written out in an understandable format.
Raymer says: Every designer and structural analyst has a copy of this huge book. It has all the methods, all the data, all the...but sometimes they are hard to find!
Raymer says: Another must-have, even at such a high price. Jane's has the authoritative data on existing aircraft for empirical correlations
and help with the "where do I start?" for a new design.
An AIAA best-seller, in use around the world. Has sold 60,000+ copies and received the Excellence Award from
the Aviation/Space Writers Association and the AIAA Summerfield Book Award. Peter Garrison reviewed it in Flying Magazine and
recommended it as the best book for learning how to design an airplane.
The Student's version of the RDSwin aircraft design software, with a user-friendly implementation of the methods of the book including built-in CAD module for design layout plus aerodynamics, weights, propulsion, sizing, range, performance, and cost calculations.
The title says it all - simplified methods based on industry experience, easy-to-follow procedures, and extensively illustrated. Also, it's a lot of fun.
Any high school graduate or equivalent should have no trouble. Flying Magazine's Peter Garrison recommends it as the first aircraft design book that a homebuilder should acquire.
Raymer's education and experiences in the field of aircraft advanced design. A non-technical, easy,
and humorous read, favorably reviewed in Flying Magazine by Peter Garrison.
J. Fielding / Paperback (also available in Hardcover) / Published 1999
Raymer says: I've ordered a copy - Fielding knows design and is an interesting speaker so his book is sure to be tops. Hope he doesn't take too many sales from me!
S. Jackson/ Hardcover / Published 1997
Raymer says: Transport-oriented design book by a designer from Douglas Aircraft - considers
the aircraft as a whole rather than a collection of parts.
Raymer says: Another must-have, even at such a high price. Jane's has the authoritative data on existing aircraft for empirical correlations
and help with the "where do I start?" for a new design.
L. W. Reithmaier / Paperback / Published 1991
Raymer says: Good reference book for aircraft design and construction covering materials, fasteners, fittings, etc... with lots of illustrations. And, it's cheap!
Raymer says: Don't tell anyone I said so, but this is actually a pretty good book for learning about the design of real airplanes too!
And, remember Flight of the Phoenix...
Raymer says: This is a lesser-known book that I find I refer to a lot for an understandable overview of theory plus lots of data and estimation methods for aerodynamics and performance. It also has a nice section on propeller thrust calculations.
Raymer says: My father used an early version of this at test pilot school in the 1960's- it is still a well written and understandable introduction to aerodynamics - and not just for naval aviators.
William H. Rae, Alan LaMont Pope (Contributor) / Paperback / Published 1984
Raymer says: This is an update of the great and classic Wind Tunnel Testing book by Pope, covering wind tunnnel design, instrumentation, test procedures, and data reduction and correction. If you get anywhere near a wind tunnel, have this book!
Raymer says: The best overall book for practical S&C estimation, and has many of the key DATCOM charts useful for aero and S&C calculations. It also has the huge S&C equations written out in an understandable format.
Raymer says: Every designer and structural analyst has a copy of this huge book. It has all the methods, all the data, all the...but sometimes they are hard to find!
Raymer says: Sweetman is a well-known craftsman of aviation literature, and his review of stealth was pretty good for being done without access to classified information at the time. Still worth reading.
Susan A. Resetar, et al / Paperback / Published 1991
Raymer says: This lesser-known work was a DAPCA follow-on including the impacts of advanced materials on cost. Today its adjustment factors are considered too pessimistic, but the method is still useful.
Daniel P. Raymer/ Paperback / Published 2009 (click here for more info)
Raymer says: My newest book - my life, education, and experiences in aircraft advanced design.
Jan Roskam/ Paperback / Published 2002
Raymer says: Jan has a million great stories about his years in the airplane business - now he has written them down. Great fun - read it!
Raymer says: There is a reason that the English words for many parts of an aircraft are borrowed from French
(aileron, fuselage, longeron,...). While the Wrights beat them to a "real" airplane, the French quickly took the lead in early
aircraft development - read about it in this well-researched and interesting book.
Raymer says: An exhaustive yet entertaining analysis of the development of jet fighters - what really happened, what was really important in the final analysis.
M. Lorell, M. Kennedy, D. Raymer, et al / Paperback / Published 1995
Raymer says: Good overview of the Gripen, Raphale, and Eurofighter - including technical, political, and programmatic. I mostly wrote the aircraft stuff.
Jeannette Remak & Joe Ventolo, Jr. / Paperback / Published 1999
Raymer says: As someone trained in aircraft design at North American Rockwell, I still think the B-70 was
the pinacle of aircraft design. And, it still looks futuristic 40 years after its conception. These authors seem to love it almost as much as I do!
D. Aronstein & A. Piccirillo/ Paperback / Published 1997
Raymer says: Story of one of the most fought-against yet most successful aircraft developments in recent history - the F-16. Read all about the "Fighter Mafia".
Raymer says: Isaac Newton was amazing. He just about invented scientific engineering and did invent both the Laws of Motion and the Calculus upon
which all design engineering depends. He even worked to improve the efficiency of the London mint through time-and-motion studies, 200 years before Taylor.
Constance Reid, Clara Allen, and Sandra Gilbert
/ Paperback / Published 2004
Raymer says: A warm, funny, and true story about two young women building bombers during WWII.
MISC. BOOKS FOR DESIGNERS
Books by Malcolm Gladwell:
Raymer says: Gladwell makes me think more than almost anybody writing
today. All these books are great. In Outliers, he proposes that
the really successful people work way harder than others, accumulating roughly 10,000 hours in their
field before reaching success and being lauded for their lucky "gifts." Sounds right to me...
Raymer says: Two books defining and discussing "systems architecting", a fancy way of saying the invention of complex systems. Very applicable to aircraft conceptual design.
Raymer says: Read this excellent book about the so-called "Japanese" revolution in manufacturing and design. This book
has greatly influenced the aircraft design community in such areas as Integrated Product Teams and Lean Production. For a caution about how
it should be applied to the conceptual design process, see my paper
Lean Production and the Skunk Works Approach to Aircraft Design.
Raymer says: Another good book on JIT/lean production written for American audiences by a Japanese consultant, with many case studies in various industries.
Raymer says: The legendary Grand Master, whose entertaining and
believable future histories inspired so many of us to pursue science and engineering, and whose
intelligence and imagination allowed him to peer into the future of society, literally writing
today's headlines half a century ago. Door Into Summer is a special favorite being a clever time-travel story
written in 1956 about a design engineer who develops what today would be called a CAD system,
which he names "Drafting Dan." His story Waldo, about a disabled man who lives in space and
invents robotic hands to work with, has provided the common name for today's remote telemanipulators.
Starship Troopers (nothing like the movie) is a
slam-bang story of future soldiers. Hugely entertaining, it remains controversial for its militaristic social depictions, but
has become the blue-chip standard by which military Sci-Fi stories are judged. Below are
some more of my favorites. Caution: Heinlein's later works starting with Stranger in a Strange Land
delved into sexual mores increasingly far from social norms, and are not suitable for children.
Raymer says: The almost-as-legendary Niven has written many excellent Sci-Fi
novels, mostly based in a consistent setting he calls "Known Space." His science is well thought out, including
depictions of spacecraft using the Interstellar Ramjet as proposed by nuclear scientist Robert W. Bussard.
Famously, after the award-winning Ringworld was published,
his MIT fans performed detailed calculations which led them to chant "the Ringworld is unstable" at the 1971
Worldcon. Niven's sequel The Ringworld Engineers included previously-unmentioned stabilizing jets, sized appropriately!
His book Protector probably has the most creative explanation for the creation of the human race that has ever
been (fictionally) proposed. Some people consider his novel Footfall to be the best alien-invasion story
ever written, and (spoiler alert) ends with the construction of an Orion-class atomic spaceship (see above).
And yes, all of Niven's stories are suitable for children, but only very smart ones.
Raymer says: Best Sci-Fi author since Heinlein and Niven, and maybe better since
Scalzi has such a sense of humor. Old Man's War made me a fan, and the next five are sequels that round out a complicated
and action-packed story of humanity fighting for survival in a dangerous universe, without losing what makes us
human. Redshirts and Agent to the Stars are both hilarious, carefully crafted books that make you
think. The rest are all good reads.
Raymer says: Humorous, slightly risqué, and unintentionally educational historical fictions
about a scandalous and cowardly British military hero who accidentally manages to be in every important battle and
meet every important figure from 1840 to 1900, from the Charge of the Light Brigade to Custer's Last Stand, from
Queen Victoria to Otto von Bismark to Abraham Lincoln. Where else can you read a hilarious yet technically accurate account of
the setting up and launching of a Congreve Rocket? Caution: Sir Flashman is of low morals, a crude womanizer, and speaks in the
non-PC vocabulary of an Englishman of the period, so these books are not for children or the easily-offended.
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