Helicopter Flight Dynamics, 3rd Edition

Preface to First Edition

In this preface, I want to communicate three things. First, I would like to share with the reader my motivation for taking on this project. Second, I want to try to identify my intended audience and, third, I want to record some special acknowledgements to colleagues who have helped

When I decided to pursue a career as an aeronautical engineer, my motivation stemmed from an aesthetic delight in flight and things that flew, combined with an uncanny interest in tackling, and sometimes solving, difficult technical problems. Both held a mystery for me and together, unbeknown to me at the time, helped me to ‘escape’ the Welsh mining community in which I had been sculptured, on to the roads of learning and earning. Long before that, in the late 1940s, when I was taking my first gasps of Welsh air, the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) had been conducting the first research flight trials to understand helicopter stability and control. It should be remembered that at that time, practical helicopters had been around for less than a decade. From reading the technical reports and talking with engineers who worked in those days, I have an image of an exciting and productive era, with test and theory continuously wrestling to provide first‐time answers to the many puzzles of helicopter flight dynamics.

Although there have been quiet periods since then, the RAE sustained its helicopter research programme through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and by the time I took charge ...