Stability and Control Textbooks and Conferences

Sharing honors with the educators in bringing stability and control theory into practice are a number of textbooks. B. Melvill Jones’ “Dynamics of the Aeroplane” section of W F. Durand’s Aerodynamic Theory (1934) is the earliest textbook with a widespread impact in the field. The second edition of Leonard Bairstow’s Applied Aerodynamics (1939) was also widely used. A truly landmark textbook appeared in 1949: Airplane Performance, Stability and Control, by Courtland D. Perkins and Robert E. Hage. This book was and still is a favorite for undergraduate stability and control instruction. It is very well balanced, giving space to many important topics. Aside from the Jones, Bairstow, and Perkins texts, we list a number of other stability and control textbooks (in English), in the order published. The pace of publishing new books in the field seems to be accelerating in recent times, with about as many new titles since 1990 as in all previous years.

W J. Duncan, Control and Stability of Aircraft. Cambridge, 1952

B. Etkin, Dynamics of Flight: Stability and Control. Wiley, 1959,1982,1985 (with L. D. Reid)

A. W. Babister, Aircraft Stability and Control. Pergamon, 1961

W. R. Kolk, Modern Flight Dynamics. Prentice-Hall, 1951

E. Seckel, Stability and Control of Airplanes and Helicopters. Academic, 1964

T. Hacker, Flight Stability and Control. Elsevier, 1970

J. Roskam, Flight Dynamics of Rigid and Elastic Airplanes. U. Kansas, 1972

B. Etkin, Dynamics of Atmospheric Flight. Wiley, 1972

D. McRuer, I. Ashkenas, and D. Graham, Aircraft Dynamics and Automatic Control. Princeton, 1973

H. Ashley, Engineering Analysis of Flight Vehicles. Dover, 1974

A. W. Babister, Aircraft Dynamic Stability and Response. Pergamon, 1980

F. O. Smetana, Computer-Assisted Analysis of Aircraft Performance, Stability and Control. McGraw-Hill, 1983

J. M. Rolfe and K. J. Staples, eds., Flight Simulation. Cambridge, 1986

R. C. Nelson, Flight Stability and Automatic Control. McGraw-Hill, 1989

J. H. Blakelock, Automatic Control of Aircraft and Missiles. Wiley, 1991

B. L. Stevens and F. L. Lewis, Aircraft Control and Simulation. Wiley, 1992

A. E. Bryson, Jr., Control of Aircraft and Spacecraft. Princeton, 1994

B. W. McCormick, Aerodynamics, Aeronautics and Flight Mechanics. Wiley, 2nd ed., 1995

G. J. Hancock, An Introduction to the Flight Dynamics of Rigid Aeroplanes. Horwood, 1995

M. B. Tischler, ed., Advances in Aircraft Flight Control. Taylor & Francis, 1996; AIAA, 2000

D. Stinton, Flying Qualities and Flight Testing of the Airplane. AIAA, 1996

J. Russell, Performance and Stability of Aircraft. Arnold, 1996

M. V Cook, Flight Dynamics Principles. Arnold, 1997

J.-L. Boiffier, The Dynamics of Flight: The Equations. Wiley, 1998

L. V. Schmidt, Introduction to Aircraft Flight Dynamics. AIAA, 1998

M. J. Abzug, Computational Flight Dynamics. AIAA, 1998

B. Pamadi, Performance, Stability, Dynamics, and Control of Airplanes. AIAA, 1998

J. Hodgkinson, Aircraft Handling Qualities. AIAA, 1999

P H. Zipfel, Modeling and Simulation of Aerospace Vehicle Dynamics. AIAA, 2000

R. W. Pratt, ed., Flight Control Systems: Practical Issues in Design and Implemen­tation. AIAA, 2000

As one of the founders of NATO’s Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Devel­opment, or AGARD, Dr. Theodore von Karman helped greatly in the advance and dissem­ination of stability and control knowledge in the years following the second World War. In 1997, AGARD was incorporated into the Research and Technology Organization (RTO) of the Defense Research Group of NATO, as a budgetary measure.

While AGARD was still active, it brought together stability and control experts from all of the NATO countries in a wide variety of periodic meetings. For example, there were meetings of flight mechanics and guidance and control panels, symposiums, lecture series, and consultant and exchange programs. The publications and meetings of AGARD and its successor RTO remain a useful source for stability and control research and development.

In the United States, the work of the AGARD and RTO groups is paralleled by that of the Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, or AIAA. Under the committee’s direction, the AIAA holds valuable atmospheric flight mechanics and guidance and control conferences yearly. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has an active Aerospace Committee (formerly A-18) that briefs its members periodically and has a publication and meetings program.

In Europe, the Royal Aeronautical Society, the German Aerospace Society DGLR, and the French National Academy hold periodic conferences that address flight mechanics and control.

CHAPTER 3