Originally Posted by
Downwind Lander
Very interesting PD. I see that the author was treated to an extended American working holiday under Operation Paperclip, presumably in 1946, when he wrote your book which he self published in 1951. Then the other one comes out fifteen years later.
I wonder if material was removed between the volumes on the grounds of military secrecy. A comparison of your book, which must be pretty valuable, to the available Fluid Dynamics could be intriguing.
Well London isn't that far away if you wanted to meet up for a comparison (I'm told they have the places called "Pubs", but I'm not familiar with them*).
I believe the subsequent editions tidied up the layout, included better (not hand-drawn/plotted) figures and added in some data on numerical methods which became practicable as computers came into use. I don't think there was anything taken out - especially on grounds of military secrecy because even the original book was written in English and after the end of WW2. I did once read that Dr Hoerner wrote the book to establish his bona fides (and thus his employability at a senior level) as a proper aero guy, but I don't know how true that is.
He certainly set out to write down everything there was to know on the subject of drag prediction. The technical publishers he approached (for a commission) mostly declined on the basis that they felt such a book was impossible, and were duly embarrassed when he showed them to be wrong!
Hw wrote is subsequent book "Aerodynamic Lift" on request, because when someone said it was a shame that the hydrostatic aspect couldn't all be documented as he had for the dynamic he wanted to prove them wrong as well, which he did (but not as definitively, as aspects of very low Re and high supersonics were not known at the time and in some respects still aren't). Although he had offers this time this book was still "self published" (albeit with his publishing company which was a bit more of a serious concern by then). Sadly he died before it was finally published, but his widow continued the businesss and printed/sold all the books for several years.
PDR
* I'm a teetotaller, but I'm not very good at it...
