Reviewed by:

• The Grand Designers: The Evolution of the Airplane in the 20th Century by John D. Anderson Jr.
• Marc J. Alsina (bio)

Even the most cursory comparison of a Wright Flyer and a modern airliner leaves no doubt about the dizzying rate of change in aircraft technology throughout the twentieth century. In his latest book, National Air & Space Museum Curator of Aerodynamics John D. Anderson Jr. investigates what he describes as the “intellectual methodology” of conceptual aircraft design that drove the swift improvement of aviation technology. Anderson follows the careers of several “grand designers”—the Wright Brothers, Frank Barnwell, Arthur Raymond, R. J. Mitchell, Edgar Schmued, and Kelly Johnson—revealing the design processes these men used to transform their ideas into highly successful aircraft. [End Page 976]

As Anderson explains, conceptual design is the first stage in creating a new airplane. Generally, the designer starts with a blank sheet of paper, then establishes the basic layout that will ideally meet the potential users’ performance requirements. Alongside their analysis of experimental data, aircraft designers marshal their experience, intuition, and aesthetic preferences to mold their creations.

Anderson argues that despite differing personalities and education, all of his “grand designers” used the same basic methodology to establish and refine their conceptual designs. He begins with the nineteenth-century rudimentary flying machines, whose creators largely lacked a cohesive design methodology. In chapter two, Anderson reveals how the Wright Brothers were the first to create a “rational methodology” for aircraft design. In addition to understanding the airplane as a system, the brothers refined their design using mathematical parameters such as weight, lift coefficients, and velocity. These “design points” focused their design and experimentation process, eventually garnering them success where so many others failed.

Yet the next designer, Frank Barnwell, is at the heart of The Grand Designers. Anderson argues that Barnwell, a fixture of the British aircraft industry until his death in 1928, set the “gold standard” for conceptual design. In his 1916 book Aeroplane Design, Barnwell described his process as starting with a precise outline of requirements before making a weight estimate. The requirements and projected weight then determined the desired performance parameters for the aircraft (such as the lift-to-drag ratio). Only then did the designer sketch a basic layout. Barnwell then reevaluated the estimated performance of the aircraft and made adjustments. Anderson argues that Barnwell’s method became commonplace in the aircraft design community.

The other case studies reinforce the centrality of Barnwell’s methodology. In chapter four, Anderson follows Arthur Raymond and the creation of the DC-3 during the first “design revolution” in aviation in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The author emphasizes that Raymond used the same intellectual methodology of design, despite new advancements in streamlining, engines, and construction. This line of argument, however, is stretched in the subsequent chapters discussing R. J. Mitchell’s work on the Spitfire, Edgar Schmued on the P-51 Mustang, and Kelly Johnson with the “Skunk Works.” The book would have benefited from further analysis of these radical new technologies and the eccentricities of these designers. While Anderson focuses on the similarities of their methods, he also draws interesting distinctions in their uses of wind tunnel data, aerodynamic theory, and aesthetic taste for shaping their design. These details dispel any notion that educational background or familiarity with scientific theory were the sole determinants of success in the first half of the twentieth century.

The Grand Designers is intended for both nontechnical and technical audiences and indeed succeeds in being accessible for newcomers to aviation [End Page 977] history and compelling for technical readers. Anderson excels when explaining complex processes of design, aerodynamic theory, and experimental testing. The many images accompanying the text bring extra clarity to what might have been an abstruse subject.

Anderson’s secondary arguments about education and the relevance of scientific experimentation and theory to these grand designers’ processes deserve more emphasis. Furthermore, extensive footnoting would have helped to separate technical information from the overall narrative of each chapter. The Grand Designers is an...

审核人：

• 大设计师：约翰·安德森（John D. Anderson Jr.）撰写的《 20世纪飞机的演变》。
• 马克·J·阿尔西娜（生物）

即使是莱特传单和现代客机的最粗略的比较，也毫无疑问地使整个二十世纪飞机技术的变化速度令人眼花rate乱。在他的最新著作中，美国国家航空航天博物馆的空气动力学策展人约翰·安德森（John D. Anderson Jr.）研究了他所描述的概念飞机设计的“智力方法论”，从而推动了航空技术的迅速改进。安德森（Anderson）跟随赖特兄弟（Wright Brothers），弗兰克·巴恩威尔（Frank Barnwell），亚瑟·雷蒙德（Arthur Ra​​ymond），RJ米切尔（RJ Mitchell），埃德加·施穆德（Edgar Schmued）和凯利·约翰逊（Kelly Johnson）等几位“大设计师”的职业生涯，揭示了这些人用来将其思想转变为成功的飞机的设计过程。[结束页976]

正如安德森所解释的那样，概念设计是制造新飞机的第一步。通常，设计人员从一张白纸开始，然后建立基本布局，以理想地满足潜在用户的性能要求。除了对实验数据进行分析之外，飞机设计师还结合他们的经验，直觉和审美偏好来塑造自己的作品。

安德森认为，尽管个性和学历不同，但他的所有“大设计师”都使用相同的基本方法来建立和完善其概念设计。他从19世纪的基本飞行器开始，其创造者在很大程度上缺乏凝聚力的设计方法。在第二章中，安德森（Anderson）展示了赖特兄弟（Wright Brothers）是如何率先为飞机设计创建“合理方法论”的。除了将飞机理解为系统之外，兄弟俩还使用重量，升力系数和速度等数学参数对设计进行了改进。这些“设计要点”集中于他们的设计和试验过程，最终在许多其他失败的地方获得成功。

下一位设计师Frank Barnwell是The Grand Designers的核心。安德森（Anderson）辩称，直到1928年去世的巴恩韦尔（Barnwell）一直是英国飞机工业的固定装置，为概念设计设定了“黄金标准”。巴恩威尔（Barnwell）在其1916年的《飞机设计》一书中将其过程描述为在确定重量之前先从要求的精确轮廓开始。然后，需求和预计的重量确定了飞机的所需性能参数（例如升阻比）。然后设计师才设计出基本布局。然后，Barnwell重新评估了飞机的估计性能并进行了调整。安德森认为，巴恩韦尔的方法在飞机设计界变得司空见惯。

其他案例研究则加强了Barnwell方法论的中心性。在第四章中，安德森（Anderson）跟随亚瑟·雷蒙德（Arthur Ra​​ymond）以及在1920年代末和1930年代初的第一次航空“设计革命”期间创建DC-3。作者强调说，尽管精简，引擎和构造方面有了新的进步，但雷蒙德使用了相同的智力设计方法。然而，在随后的章节中将进一步讨论这一论点，这些章节将讨论RJ Mitchell在喷火上的工作，Edgar Schmued在P-51野马上的工作以及Kelly Johnson的“臭鼬工作”。本书将通过对这些激进的新技术以及这些设计师的怪癖的进一步分析而受益。尽管安德森（Anderson）专注于他们方法的相似性，但他在他们使用风洞数据时也得出了有趣的区别，空气动力学理论和塑造设计的审美趣味。这些细节消除了任何观念，即教育背景或对科学理论的熟悉是二十世纪上半叶成功的唯一决定因素。

Grand Designers面向非技术和技术领域的受众，并且确实成功地为航空业的新手提供了访问[End Page 977]的历史，并吸引了技术读者。安德森在解释复杂的设计，空气动力学理论和实验测试过程方面表现出色。文字中附带的许多图像使本来可能比较深奥的主题更加清晰。

安德森关于教育的次要论据以及科学实验和理论与这些伟大设计师的过程的相关性值得进一步强调。此外，广泛的脚注将有助于将技术信息与每章的整体叙述区分开。大设计师是...