Saturday, November 7, 2015

Book Review: Jane's Aero-Engines

Bill Gunston, Editor
Jane's Aero-Engines, Issue 11
Surrey, UK: Jane's Information Group, 2001
Category: Aerospace Engineering

Rating: 5-Stars


Everyone who follows aviation should, of course, be familiar with Jane's All the World's Aircraft, the most complete and authoritative single-source for information on all aircraft in production today.  What many may not be aware of is that Jane's also publishes a series of annual reference books on a variety of other topics, including one devoted to aircraft engines.

I'll use my own copy of the 2001 edition of Jane's Aero-Engines as an example.  Including the appendices it spans 637 pages in length.  Organized by nation of origin, and manufacturer, it spans every aircraft engine produced from Belgium's TechAerospace (which has license-produced a variety of jet engines over the decades) to the United States' Wright Aeronautical and its J65 (still flying!).  For the major aircraft engines in production today, Jane's Aero-Engines will provide a long list of the known statistics, as well as a brief history of the engine type, variants produced, and a description of key technologies.  Everything from the number of fan and compressor stages, overall pressure ratios, number of turbine stages, operating temperatures if available, all of that under one set of covers.  At the beginning of the volume, Jane's Aero-Engines also includes an overview of the jet engine industry, including a historical depiction of trends and technologies.

There really is no other resource comparable to Jane's Aero-Engines.  It's one of the first places that any engineer will turn to when evaluating a competitor engine, or when referencing the prior state-of-the-art in jet engines.  An incomparable resource.

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