This classic monograph on unsteady transonic flow — the flow of air encountered at speeds at or near the speed of sound — is of continuing interest to students and professionals in aerodynamics, fluid dynamics, and other areas of applied mathematics. After a brief Introduction, Swedish physicist Mårten T. Landahl presents a chapter in which the two-dimensional solution is derived, succeeded by a discussion of its relation to the subsonic and supersonic solutions. Three chapters on low aspect ratio configurations follow, covering triangular wings and similar planforms with curved leading edges, rectangular wings, and cropped delta wings, and low aspect ratio wing-body combinations. The treatment concludes with a consideration of the experimental determination of air forces on oscillating wings at transonic speeds.

Linearized slender-body theory is applied to the computation of aerodynamic forces on an oscillating, or deforming, body in supersonic flow. The undeformed body is a body of revolution and the deformed body is represented by movement of a line through the centers of the cross sections which are assumed to remain circular. The time dependence is based on sinusoidal motion. For a body of vanishing thickness the slender-body theory yields the apparent mass approximation as it is obtained for incompressible crossflow around a cylinder. Both linearized slender-body theory and the apparent mass approximation are used to calculate the pitching-moment coefficients on a rigid slender body with a parabolic arc nose cone, and these coefficients are compared with some experimental results. (Author).

"The following monograph is intended to survey they application of the theory of perfect fluid flow to the prediction of the aerodynamic forces that act on thin wings and slender bodies as a result of small, unsteady motions with respect to an equilibrium configuration of uniform, supersonic flight. In addition, certain aspects of the corresponding subsonic problem are taken up (in Chapters 1 and 2) insofar as they afford informative comparisons with their supersonic counterparts."--Preface.