Preface

Summary

Rotorcraft is a class of aircraft that uses large-diameter rotating wings to accomplish efficient vertical takeoff and landing. The class thus encompasses helicopters of numerous configurations, tilting proprotor aircraft, compound helicopters, and many other innovative concepts.

Defining “aeromechanics” is more difficult. Today's dictionaries do not capture what the term means for the rotorcraft community. The definitions are not broad enough, and they do not reflect the multidisciplinary facet of the word as applied to rotorcraft. In my 2010 Nikolsky Lecture for the American Helicopter Society, I proposed the following definition:

Aeromechanics: The branch of aeronautical engineering and science dealing with equilibrium, motion, and control of elastic rotorcraft in air.

Aeromechanics covers much of what ther otorcraft engineer needs: performance, loads, vibration, stability, flight dynamics, and noise. These topics cover many of the key performance attributes and many of the often encountered problems in rotorcraft designs.

As with my previous book Helicopter Theory (written in 1976, published in 1980 by Princeton University Press, republished in 1994 by Dover Publications), this text is focused on analysis, with only occasional reference to test data to develop arguments or support results, and with nothing at all regarding the techniques of testing in wind tunnels or flight. Calculated results are presented to illustrate analysis characteristics and rotor behavior.