The X-29 was an unusual aircraft with a truly unique silhouette. It combined many features that challenged the technologies of its day and represented special problems for the developers and the team of testers responsible for documenting its features and design goals. This book is a look at the "big picture" of what this team accomplished in a relatively fast-paced test program involving the truly unique X-29.

Winner of the Summerfield Book Award Winner of the Aviation-Space Writers Association Award of Excellence. --Over 30,000 copies sold, consistently the top-selling AIAA textbook title This highly regarded textbook presents the entire process of aircraft conceptual designfrom requirements definition to initial sizing, configuration layout, analysis, sizing, and trade studiesin the same manner seen in industry aircraft design groups. Interesting and easy to read, the book has more than 800 pages of design methods, illustrations, tips, explanations, and equations, and extensive appendices with key data essential to design. It is the required design text at numerous universities around the world, and is a favorite of practicing design engineers.

A wind-tunnel investigation at high subsonic speeds has been conducted to determine the effect of fuselage forebody strakes on the static stability and the vertical-tail-load characteristics of an airplane-type configuration having a delta wing. The tests were made at Mach numbers from 0.60 to 0.92 corresponding to Reynolds numbers from 3,000,000 to 4,200,000, based on the wing mean aerodynamic chord, and at angles of attack from approximately -2 to 24 degrees.

In "Aerodynamic Principles of Flight Vehicles" Argyris Panaras examines the fundamentals of vortices and shock waves, aerodynamic estimation of lift and drag, airfoil theory, boundary layer control, and high-speed, high-temperature flow. Individual chapters address vortices in aerodynamics, transonic and supersonic flows, transonic/supersonic aircraft configurations, and high-supersonic/hypersonic flows, beginning with definitions and historical data, and then describing present-day status and current research challenges. Emphasis is given to flow control, to the evolution of flight vehicle shapes as flight speed has increased, and to discoveries that enabled breakthrough developments in flight. The book: examines why various equations and technologies were developed, explains major contributors in areas such as vortices and aircraft wakes, drag buildup, sonic boom, and shock wave-boundary layer interactions, among others, and helps readers apply concepts from the material to their own projects. Archival and encyclopedic, "Aerodynamic Principles of Flight Vehicles" is a superb reference for aeronautical students and professionals alike. Although most beneficial to readers with a working knowledge of aerodynamics, it is accessible to anyone with an introductory understanding of the field.

An investigation has been conducted in the Langley 4- by 4-foot supersonic pressure tunnel to determine the effects of wing and horizontal-tail vertical location on the aerodynamic characteristics in sideslip at various angles of attack for a supersonic airplane configuration at Mach numbers of 1.41 and 2.01. The basic model was equipped with a wing and horizontal tail, each having 45 degree sweep and an aspect ratio of 4. The wing had a taper ratio of 0.2 and NACA 65A004 sections; the horizontal tail had a taper ratio of 0.4 and NACA 65A006 sections.