PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Any Useful Resources For A BTEC Aerospace Engineering Course?
Old 16th March 2003 | 13:06
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Genghis the Engineer
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In the links page over on tech log, you'll find stacks of stuff that should be useful once you get there, particularly after the first year.

In the meantime however, most of the textbooks you'll need will be recommended by your lecturers and available locally. But to help your startout be as painless as possible I can make a few suggestions:-

- Brush up your maths, however good you think it is, (including A standard A-level marks) you'll struggle. There are a few "Engineering Mathematics", or similar titled books that are very good. If you don't know your course's recommended book could I suggest a very good one of that title by K A Stroud. Especially work on your algebra and calculus - which underly virtually all engineering theory.

- Spend some time getting a feel for the non-mathematical issues behind aircraft design. I'd suggest two books there. One is Kermode's superb "Flight without Formulae", the other is (harder to get hold of) Prouty's "Helicopter Aerodynamics" (not his other more highbrow volume).

- I don't know if you are a pilot or not, but regardless go and borrow the operators manual for an aeroplane, any aeroplane, and find your way around it. The reason here is that by learning the way one areoplane fits together well, it becomes much easier to understand similar issues on anything else.

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