Stratospheric Flight: Aeronautics at the Limit

ISBN-13: 9781441994578 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 215 str.

Sobester

Opis

In this fascinating book, Dr Andras Sobester narrates the past, present, and future of stratospheric flight and gives a detailed analysis of the science behind it. The book is divided into four parts. The first chapter in Part I describes the race for stratospheric passenger travel, the story of the Comet 1, and the loss of G-ALYP and G-ALYY, as well as fatigue design and testing today. The second chapter continues with the transatlantic race and the limits of commercial long distance flight, including information on Steve Fossett and the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer as well as stratospheric balloon flight. Chapter 3 looks at Concorde and the design challenges of high altitude passenger transport, including Space Shuttle maneuvers in the stratosphere. This part ends with an analysis of airspeed margins in stratospheric flight, as well as flight in low density air and jet engine operation, including stalling, at high altitude. Part II opens with a chapter on the design considerations for emergency descents. Chapter 6 looks at unpressurized flight, as well as gliding, in the stratosphere, while the following chapter considers hypoxia and its effects. The remaining two chapters in this part consider cabin air systems, the cost of air conditioning, ice at high altitude, and the short and long term health effects of stratospheric flight on air- and cabin crew. The first two chapters in Part III look at outside the airplane: the weather, tropical storms, temperature shears, and clear air turbulence. The environmental impact of stratospheric flight is considered, including the effect on the ozone layer and the use of biofuels at low temperatures. Part IV looks at the way ahead and considers flight in the upper stratosphere, commercial suborbital flights, and unmanned missions to the stratosphere. The book ends with an analysis of the future of stratospheric flight. This book thus shows that, beyond the solved and unsolved design riddles and forensic engineering efforts to understand flaws, the modern stratospheric airliner is an incomparably complex, wondrous and awe-inspiring engineering achievement."

Recenzje

"I have put in many hours looking out of airliner windows, even more in aircraft design offices and years test flying but this book fascinated me and taught me a lot." - John Farley

Spis treści

Preface.- Acknowledgements.- About the author.- Prologue.- Millimeters of mercury.- Part I: In a hostile environment.- Chapter 1: A sense of not belonging.- Chapter 2: Comfort Zone.- Part II: New heights of flight.- Chapter 3: A tale of two Comets.- Chapter 4: Higher.- Chapter 5: Faster.- Part III: 'Above the weather'.- Chapter 6: Deep freeze.- Chapter 7: Rivers of air.- Chapter 8: Rough ride.- Chapter 9: A gray area.- Part IV: Where next?.- Chapter 10: Higher still.- V. Appendices.- Chapter 11: Unit conversions.- Chapter 12: Temperature profiles around the globe.- References.- Index.

O autorze

Dr. Andras Sobester is an aerospace engineering lecturer at the University of Southampton in the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment. He holds a Research Fellowship funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research council. The remit of the Fellowship is to investigate technologies for the reduction of the environmental impact of the next generation of passenger airliners. In particular, his research is aimed at the design of airframe surfaces for minimizing the noise footprint of aircraft, while maintaining their performance.

His other research areas include high altitude flight (including lighter-than-air systems), the multi-disciplinary design optimization of aircraft, the mathematical description of geometries used in aerospace engineering, as well as machine learning technologies underpinning the use of high fidelity computer simulations in aircraft design.

Blurb

The stratosphere is the highest layer of Earth's atmosphere where aircraft can still fly. The density of the air is just high enough here to generate lift on a wing or buoyancy on a balloon, so designing any stratospheric aircraft is a delicate technological balancing act for the engineer. Designing and operating an aircraft capable of conveying humans to the stratosphere is more challenging still: biologically, we simply do not belong up there. Temperatures often as low as -80C (-112F) and an ambient pressure rapidly diminishing with altitude make for an extremely forbidding environment. In fact, as we pass 50 000 feet (the lower end of Concorde's cruising altitude range), we enter the space equivalent zone - from a physiological point of view we might as well be in low Earth orbit.

 

The fact that stratospheric flight is possible at all - moreover, even safe and economical, at least in the lower stratosphere - is made possible by some relatively recent advances in our understanding of the science of high altitude flight. This book charts some of these developments; at the same time, it is a catalog of ways in which the stratosphere can catch out even the well-prepared flyer. Naturally, the failures of early explorers have signposted many of these dangers, but, as regular news headlines and the series of vignettes that punctuate the book illustrate, the learning curve has not levelled off, it has merely become shallower. Stratospheric flight is still aviation at the limit.