Acknowledgments

I have been fortunate to meet and work with many of the key contributors in both computational methodology and aircraft configuration development. After I formed a strong fundamental base at Virginia Tech, I had a chance to work with a wide variety of experts at Grumman. I was able to learn a lot from them. I was also able to talk with experts at national meetings, as well as NASA, WPAFB, and Pax River. Moving back to Virginia Tech, I was able to collaborate with more experts. And I was able to spend a year at the Air Force Academy, where, as might be expected, the Aeronautics Department has a very strong emphasis on aircraft aerodynamics. In the last decade, Russ Cummings has been a great collaborator. It has been a fantastic experience and hasn’t stopped yet. If I try to name all the aerodynamicists that I’ve learned from, it will be a book-length list in itself, and I will offend someone by omitting them. Finally, I appreciate former students in the class sending me info that they know I will appreciate.

– W. H. Mason (1947–2019)

Production Acknowledgments

Anita Walz, Acquisitions, Developmental, and Managing Editor

Anita Walz is Associate Professor, Assistant Director of Open Education, and Scholarly Communication Librarian in the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. She received her MS in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has worked in university, government, school, and international libraries for over twenty years. She is the founder of the Open Education Initiative at Virginia Tech and the managing editor of over twenty open textbooks adapted or created at Virginia Tech, many of which may be found by visiting the Open Textbook Collection. She has provided overall planning, project consulting, coaching, guidance, developmental assistance, and technical assistance for this book.

Kindred Grey, Publishing Coordinator

Kindred Grey is the Graphic Design and Production Specialist in the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. She joined University Libraries after receiving her BS in statistics and psychology from Virginia Tech. Kindred has contributed to over twenty open textbooks, providing technical support on layout and design. Her main focus is publishing open textbooks that are visually appealing, accessible, student oriented, and technologically advanced. She led production efforts involving accessibility and formatting for the PDF, EPUB, print, and HTML versions of the text.

Pranay Patel, Production and Technical Assistance

Pranay Patel earned his BS and MS in aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech. His research focused on the commissioning of a new wind tunnel at Virginia Tech for use in dust separation experiments for turboshaft engines. Pranay’s focus throughout his undergraduate and graduate degrees centered around aircraft propulsion and design. He served as a subteam lead on the Design, Build, Fly team at Virginia Tech for three years and served as the team’s project manager for the spring 2024 semester. He worked to import all equations and images into the text, ensuring that they had proper numbering and formatting.

Special thanks to Sullivan Madden, Joseph Brooks, and Pranay Patel, who worked on alternative text and figure review. Acknowledgments and gratitude are also extended to Dr. Mason’s former students, some of which allowed use of their graphics in this book.

Thank you to Dr. Jason M. Merret, Dr. Russell M. Cummings, Mr. Jason R. Riopelle, and two other peers who took time out of their days to review this text.