Fundamentals of airplane flight mechanics

Flight mechanics is the application of Newton's laws to the study of vehicle trajectories (performance), stability, and aerodynamic control. This text is concerned with the derivation of analytical solutions of airplane flight mechanics problems associated with flight in a vertical plane. Algorithms are presented for calculating lift, drag, pitching moment, and stability derivatives. Flight mechanics is a discipline. As such, it has equations of motion, acceptable approximations, and solution techniques for the approximate equations of motion. Once an analytical solution has been obtained, numbers are calculated in order to compare the answer with the assumptions used to derive it and to acquaint students with the sizes of the numbers. A subsonic business jet is used for these calculations.