Understanding Aircraft Structures. / John Cutler

The fourth edition of Understanding Aircraft Structures builds, naturally enough, on the firm foundations of the earlier editions in aiming to keep up to date with an evolving industry. Whilst the fundamentals of how aircraft are constructed change only relatively slowly, the aerospace world as a whole tends to change at a more noticiable pace and many of these change impinge upon the realm of aircraft structures. The major change since publication of the last esition has been in the regulatory environment: all to the national European aviation regulators have been subordinated beneath a new European Union body, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). This change is reflected in the chapter describing how to apply for approval of an aircraft modification and, to alesser extent, in the section on quality and airworthiness. The broad range of subjects which support, and interact with, the work of the aircraft structures designer is covered in greater detail than before and the opportunity has been taken to provide a "round up" of the key points at the end of each chapter. In their own studies the authors have found that this kind of review at the end of a chapter greatly helps the learning process. finally, in recent years we have seen the European Airbus organisation surpass the great Boeing Company in terms of numbersof aircraft sold. However, the American aircraft industry remains the dominant force in the world of aviation. Its influences is such that, probably, the majority of the industry continues to work in imperial rather than SI units. For this reason, and afther much soul-searching, it has been decided to retain both imperial and SI units in this book.