Dear Reader, Here is your book. Take it, run with it, pass it, punt it, enjoy all the many things that you can do with it, but-above all-read it. Like all textbooks, it was written to help you increase your knowledge; unlike all too many textbooks that you have bought, it will be fun to read. A preface usually tells of the author's reasons for writing the book and the author's goals for the reader, followed by a swarm of other important matters that must be attended to yet fit nowhere else in the book. I am fortunate in being able to include an insightful prepublication review that goes directly to my motivations and goals. (Look for it following this preface.) That leaves only those other important matters. In preparing the text, I consulted a number of books, chief of which included these: • S. Chandrasekhar, Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium, Yale Uni versity Press, 1969. • J .M.A. Danby, Fundamentals of Celestial Mechanics, Macmil lan, 1962. Now available in a 2nd edition, 3rd printing, revised, corrected and enlarged, Willmann-Bell, 1992. • Y. Hagihara, Theories of Equilibrium Figures of a Rotating Ho mogeneous Fluid Mass, NASA, 1970. • R.A. Lyttleton, The Stability of Rotating Liquid Masses, C- ix x PREFACE bridge University Press, 1953. • C.B. Officer, Introduction to Theoretical Geophysics, Springer Verlag, 1974. • A.S. Ramsey, Newtonian Attraction, Cambridge University Press, 1949. • W.M. Smart, Celestial Mechanics, Longmans, Green, and Co, 1953.

This first volume of Computational Modelling of Aircraft and the Environment provides a comprehensive guide to the derivation of computational models from basic physical & mathematical principles, giving the reader sufficient information to be able to represent the basic architecture of the synthetic environment. Highly relevant to practitioners, it takes into account the multi-disciplinary nature of the aerospace environment and the integrated nature of the models needed to represent it. Coupled with the forthcoming Volume 2: Aircraft Models and Flight Dynamics it represents a complete reference to the modelling and simulation of aircraft and the environment. All major principles with this book are demonstrated using MATLAB and the detailed mathematics is developed progressively and fully within the context of each individual topic area, thereby rendering the comprehensive body of material digestible as an introductory level text. The author has drawn from his experience as a modelling and simulation specialist with BAE SYSTEMS along with his more recent academic career to create a resource that will appeal to and benefit senior/graduate students and industry practitioners alike.