Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
 bad for beginners and beginner level courses January 18, 2009
Gary P (USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was our class text book for the "jet and rocket propulsion" course in our aerospace department when I took the class. I am thoroughly dissatisfied with the book. I think maybe this book is written to provide a general understanding of how things work maybe.. because it had a lot of writing and not much math/equations and even less examples.
We had a big assignment in our class where we had to write a software that gave the temperature and pressure in every single component of a jet engine with afterburner - diffuser, compressor, combuster, burner, bleed air, etc - and this book did not help one bit. It is like the author will spend pages talking about jet engines in essay form, not many equations. And often, such as in the case of the after burner, he will just say it is similar to another component (in this case the combustion chamber), but that is not enough when you are deriving the relations for various kinds of engines.
Maybe this books is great if you already know all the math, and just want to know interesting stuff about engines.. I guess it will compliment your mathematical knowledge and provide you with the bigger picture. But you will have to learn to do the calculations from another book (and you ccant design an engine without doing such calculations).
Basically me and my group had to come up with ALL the equations on our own, the book only proved to be a waste of space on the table. We instead preferred to go back to the text we had used in Thermodynamics class since that was a much better book.
 Best Book For Propulsion. Period. April 21, 2008
knowledge seeker (India)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is just the best book for propulsion. But maybe not for beginners. And may be not for those who just want to score marks in exams by practicing large no. of problems but not caring for real & physical understanding of jet engines.
The best overall book on propulsion in existence January 10, 2007
Matt Otterstatter
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Yeah, that's a big statement, but considering the fact that I own 7 other major propulsion books and refer to this one 10 times more than any of the others, I think it's definitely true. All of the top Aerospace Engineering schools use it, and for good reason.
It is NOT a teach-yourself book. If that is what you are into, then go buy something with more pretty pictures, because some sections take some work to dig into. But if you are Senior level or grad student, then the book will be very good for you. The content in the book is very insightful, and if you go through the book concurrently with a course it is a great help.
first to second edition, or reader expectations? November 1, 2006
a reader (NH, USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
amazon listed this book in its periodic email of recommended books. I was shocked to see three stars next to it as an aggregate rating, and I was compelled to write a raving review of it. I own the fist edition of this book (1965!). this is probably one of the best written scientific books I know of. crystal clear and captivating from fundamentals to core advanced topics. anyone who was not there at the time should be fascinated by this book, and astounded to find out just what was already known in the sixties about propulsion, and mortified about how little progress has been made since, in comparison. it is true you will not find as many examples in this book as in some more recent books. in my opinion, the clarity of general explanations (with worked math) more than makes up for this. in many newer books authors seem to throw in confusing new notation, and end up with weaker explanations of core subjects. then, some people expect to use precooked examples for everything. I do not own the second edition of this book. I hope nobody has done it the great disservice of reediting it to any significant extent.
 decent text February 8, 2006
fyrphnx (Springfield, VA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The text is well-written and encompases a great deal about aerospace propulsion. There are few example problems, and the problems at the end of each chapter are worded so poorly it is difficult to know what is wanted without already knowing. Although the text is wonderfully instructive, it is a rather irritating textbook.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
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