The book has been well received and Cambridge University Press approached me with the invitation to bring out a second edition. This was attractive because of the big events in aerospace, most significantly the decision by Airbus Industrie at the end of 2000 to launch their new large aircraft, the A380. This meant that some changes in the first ten chapters were needed. Another major development is the decision to develop an American Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35.

Another more personal change took place when I left academia to become Chief Technologist of Rolls-Royce from the beginning of 2000. It should be noted, however, that the character and ideas of this second edition remain those of the university professor who wrote the first edition and do not reflect my change of role.

The aim and style of the book is unchanged. The primary goal of creating understanding and the emphasis remains on simplicity, so far as this is possible, with the extensive use of relevant numerical exercises. In a second edition I have taken the opportunity to update a number of sections and to include some explanatory background on noise; noise has become a far more pressing issue over the last four or five years. The book remains, however, very similar to the first edition and, in particular, numerical values have been kept the same and the exercises have not been changed.