Series Preface

The field of aerospace is wide ranging and multi-disciplinary, covering a large variety of products, disciplines and domains, not merely in engineering but in many related supporting activities. These combine to enable the aerospace industry to produce exciting and technolog­ically advanced products. The wealth of knowledge and experience that has been gained by expert practitioners in the various aerospace fields needs to be passed onto others working in the industry, including those just entering from University.

The Aerospace Series aims to be practical and topical series of books aimed at engineering professionals, operators, users and allied professions such as commercial and legal executives in the aerospace industry. The range of topics is intended to be wide ranging, covering design and development, manufacture, operation and support of aircraft as well as topics such as infrastructure operations and developments in research and technology. The intention is to provide a source of relevant information that will be of interest and benefit to all those people working in aerospace.

Helicopters are able to perform a wide range of roles that are not possible with conventional fixed wing aircraft, particularly due to their capability to hover, and to take-off and land vertically. There are a number of technical difficulties that have presented helicopter designers with many challenges over the years, including the aerodynamics of flexible rotors that not only provide lift, but also enable the helicopter to move forward in the desired direction.

This book, Basic Helicopter Aerodynamics, is the third edition of the original version that was written by the late John Seddon. Simon Newman has maintained the ethos of the first book, producing a further revision of this introductory text aimed at undergraduates and engineers new to the field that illustrates the fundamental features of rotor aerodynamics and helicopter design. Importantly, the book also maintains the balance of not delving into too much technical detail, whilst avoiding gross simplification of key important features and physical explana­tions. There is much to be commended in this latest expanded edition which contains a number of valuable additions to the material.

Peter Belobaba, Jonathan Cooper, Roy Langton and Allan Seabridge