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Announcing: Lecture Notes on Configuration Aerodynamics
The Open Education Initiative at Virginia Tech is pleased to announce the release of Lecture Notes on Configuration Aerodynamics (2026), by William H. Mason, edited by Pradeep Raj.
Practical applications of aerodynamic theory are critically important for aerodynamic design of aircraft configurations, but are often omitted from aerospace engineering curricula. Lecture Notes on Configuration Aerodynamics is an incredible resource for educating the next generation of aerospace engineering students who aspire to engage in the aerodynamic design of aircraft configurations. It shows how aerodynamic theory is applied in practice, giving students insight into what a career in aerodynamics entails. This book offers a design-oriented perspective of the development and analysis of aircraft aerodynamics.
Based on his academic experience as a professor and his industrial experience at Grumman, Mason presents decades of relevant knowledge and wisdom of a large number of exceptional researchers and practicing engineers. Extensive references throughout the book encourage further study of configuration aerodynamics.
This 443-page open textbook encompasses the aerodynamic design of flight vehicles with emphasis on flow fields and configuration concepts. Mason covers methodologies for aerodynamic analysis and design for flows ranging from low speed to high speed and includes case studies of classic configurations.
This work is published by the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering in association with Virginia Tech Publishing
The book is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 license (CC BY NC-SA 4.0).
Instructors reviewing, adopting, or adapting this textbook are asked to please help us understand your use of the material by filling out this form https://bit.ly/interest_configurationaerodynamics
Table of Contents
- Introduction to Configuration Aerodynamics
- Foundations of Fluid Mechanics: Governing Equations
- Fundamentals of Aerodynamic Drag
- Configuration Aerodynamic Design: Use of Computational Aerodynamics
- Subsonic Aerodynamics: Airfoils and Wings
- Transonic Aerodynamics: Airfoils and Wings
- High-Lift Aerodynamics
- High-Angle-of-Attack (High-α) Aerodynamics
- Supersonic Aerodynamics
- Hypersonic Aerodynamics
- End Note
Appendix A: Geometry for Aerodynamicists
Appendix B: Fifteen Minutes of Stealth in Aircraft Design
Appendix C: Government Regulations Affecting Configuration Aerodynamics
Appendix D: Examples of Aerodynamic Design
Appendix E: Software for Aerodynamic Analysis and Aircraft Design
Appendix F: Configuration Aerodynamics Reading List
Appendix G: The Configuration Aerodynamicist’s Bookshelf
How to Access the Book
Interactive, accessible, online version: https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu/configurationaerodynamics
PDF, epub, online version (Pressbooks), and additional resources: https://hdl.handle.net/10919/139932 or order a paperback, full-color copy.
ISBN (PDF): 978-1-962841-52-8
ISBN (Pressbooks): 978-1-962841-53-5
ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-962841-51-1
ISBN (print): 978-1-962841-50-4
The book is also listed in the Open Textbook Library, OER Commons, VIVA Open, Merlot, and the Pressbooks Directory.
About the Author and Editor
William H. Mason (1947-2019)
William Mason developed a deep passion for airplanes quite early in his life. Growing up in Southwest Virginia, he spent countless hours building and flying model airplanes as a teenager. When he was an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech, he seized upon opportunities to gain practical experience, working summers at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was involved with various F-4 aircraft projects, including the swing-wing F-4, and at the Edwards Air Force Base, California, working on US Army Huey Cobra helicopters. In 1974, he began his fifteen-year professional aerospace engineering career with Grumman, where he made valuable contributions to many high-profile projects, such as: (i) the X-29, an experimental aircraft with a forward-swept wing and canard; (ii) the NASA/Grumman Research Fighter Configuration with supercruise and maneuvering capabilities; and (iii) the SC3 Wing Concept, which set a record for low drag at high-lift supersonic performance. From 1989 until his passing in 2019, he was a dedicated educator at Virginia Tech. Right after returning to VT in 1989, he devoted himself to sharing his knowledge and insights with students and colleagues. His legacy lives on with a large number of students who either took the courses he offered in aircraft design, applied computational aerodynamics, and configuration aerodynamics or performed research in aerospace systems design and multidisciplinary optimization. He co-authored Applied Computational Aerodynamics: A Modern Engineering Approach—one of the first textbooks on this topic for undergraduates—published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. He also authored or co-authored more than 100 technical papers and reports. He was a lifelong Hokie, having earned his BS degree in 1971, a MS in 1972, and a PhD in 1975, all in aerospace engineering from Virginia Tech. Mason was an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
Pradeep Raj
Pradeep Raj is a Collegiate Professor Emeritus at Virginia Tech and spent twelve years serving as a faculty advisor of student capstone aircraft design teams and conducting collaborative research in simulation driven design to enable development of quality affordable aerial vehicles. He joined VT in 2012 after thirty-two years (1979–2011) with Lockheed Martin, a premier aerospace and defense corporation. For the first twenty years there, he held key technical leadership positions and made noteworthy contributions to advancing the effectiveness of computational simulation capabilities for meeting aircraft design needs. For the next twelve years, he held executive leadership and management positions before retiring from the Advanced Development Programs organization commonly known as the Skunk Works®, which is world renowned for creating breakthrough technologies and landmark aircraft. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS). He earned a PhD in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1976 after earning a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering and a bachelor’s in electrical technology, both from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India.
Project support
Publication of this work was made possible in part by:
- Grant funds and technical assistance the Open Education Initiative at the University Libraries. OEI provides development assistance and financial support to Virginia Tech faculty who wish to use, create, or adapt openly licensed teaching materials to support student learning,
- Funding from the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
- Virginia Tech Publishing.
Suggested citation
William H. Mason & Pradeep Raj. (2026) Lecture Notes on Configuration Aerodynamics. Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering in association with Virginia Tech Publishing. https://doi.org/10.21061/configurationaerodynamics. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Development and Editorial Team
Anita Walz, Open Education Initiative, University Libraries, Virginia Tech
Kindred Grey, Virginia Tech Publishing and Press, University Libraries, Virginia Tech
Accessibility
Virginia Tech is committed to making its publications accessible in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The Open Education Initiative is committed to continuous improvement regarding accessibility. The text, images, headings, and links in the PDF and HTML versions of this text are tagged structurally and include alternative text, which allows for machine readability. Please contact publishing@vt.edu if you are a person with a disability and have suggestions to make this book more accessible.
License
Unless otherwise noted, this work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike (CC BY NC-SA 4.0) license which allows adaptation and redistribution with attribution for uses which are not primarily commercial as long as appropriate credit is given to the creator and new creations are licensed under the same terms. See the license terms and recommended practices for attribution for additional information.
