Living in the Future: The Education and Adventures of an Advanced Aircraft Designer

This is a great book about the entertaining and interesting life of an aircraft designer. The book is split in two halves, you flip the book over to read from the other side!The first half of the book chronicles the authors life as an aircraft designer in many short stories similar in style to Richard Feynman's "Surely You're Joking..." Some of of the stories are completely unrelated to aircraft design but are entertaining and insightful nonetheless.The second half of the book focuses on semi-technical discussions of each aircraft design the author has worked on. While there is not a single equation in the book (actually, F=ma was in there once!), the authors discusses his designs assuming you have a hobbyists or engineer's knowledge of aircraft and aerodynamics. I hope that doesn't scare you off, because this book provides a well written and invaluable insight into real aircraft design within the aerospace industry. At the same time, the writing is light hearted and the author clearly had fun with his profession and writing this book. I laughed out loud many times through the reading of this book.This book inspired me to strive for a career in the aerospace industry as enjoyable as the authors, and I hope I get to fly as many planes as he did! I really liked how the author treated every new design project as a new adventure.If you are looking to go into the aerospace industry, get this book! And you better have his aircraft design book as well!

This is NOT the average scientist writing his biography (maybe with a little "help" from a spook)! This is Doctor Raymer very much himself, in his own words, telling us about a very, very interesting and rewarding career in most things aerodynamic. A pilot himself, he recounts flying everything from hang gliders to fighters, all the projects he has worked on and the many interesting travels he has made. All in a one-off type of prose that's both colorful and hilarious!This is a guy you wish you could meet one day and have a beer or three with!Living in the future is a testament to a life well lived. Highly recommended!

Dans the man. What an interesting life. Hope you get to design your own plane one day. Great book for air heads or anyone mildly interested in aviation!

While the history of recent publishing is replete with the memoirs of astronauts, test pilots, program managers and (rarely) the occasional engineer, this book is unique in that it serves not only as the personal history of the author (a well known aircraft conceptual designer), but also presents a number of the designs he worked on. Many of these seem to have not seen the public light of day previously. I highly recommend this book. It's enjoyable, readable, and stuffed with unbuilt aircraft projects (Yay! Three-view drawings!!!!). What more could a guy want? OK, nekkid wimmins, but one cannot have everything. If you are interested in finding out how preliminary aircraft design is done, and what happens with those designs, then this book is for you."Living In The Future" is essentially two separate books... the authors life story (190 pages) and the authors design projects (170 pages). You can read one without having to have read the other. Interestingly, both covers are the front cover... like some old-school sci-fi potboiler double-issues, "Living In The Future" features the two books back to back in a single softcover binding. Read through to the middle, then flip the volume around and again read through to the middle.As Raymer himself points out, this work does not have the most polished prose. Indeed, it is written in a very casual style... and is eminently readable. The autobiographical half of "Living In The Future" is engaging both in terms of readability and in just being a good yarn. Not just aircraft and launch vehicle design, but also world travel, music, women, partying, all that stuff I hear good things about.Dan Raymer is known from his publications of papers and books ("Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach" being the best known) as well as his aircraft design software (RDS - Integrated Aircraft Design and Analysis). In his career at places like Rockwell and Lockheed, he designed a vast number of aircraft... not a one of which has so far been built (see NOTE). "Living in the Future" describes both the events and personalities surrounding these design efforts, as well as many of the designs themselves. Such projects as Rockwell's earliest Advanced Tactical Fighter (eventually became the F-22); the Rockwell Delta Spanloader stealthy bomber; the X-31 (did you know some thought was given to building it out of an F-86???); a Lockheed ASTOVL fighter series that was a predecessor to the F-35; the "Black Horse" and Pioneer Rocketplane "Pathfinder;" a launch vehicle that uses sunlight, of all things; several small ground attack planes (including one with a slewable wing); the Hot Eagle/SUSTAIN concept to shoot a dozen or so crazed Marines in a rocket vehicle anywhere in the world; future airliners; unmanned aircraft, and more!NOTE: Not entirely true. Raymer was in on the X-31, and very recently he roughed out the design for the FireJet target drone, which has entered production.

Dan Raymer shares his life story in a conversational style that keeps you engaged. It's a fascinating look at the journey of the son of a Navy test pilot from an aspiring musical talent to the aircraft designer those in industry are familiar with. Dan shares his experiences with humor and for those not interested in the human side, also dedicates half of his book (it's really two books in one) to his various design throughout his career. Everything ties together of course, so I really recommend reading the whole book (or both depending on how you're counting).

I purchased this book because I have always had an interest in aircraft design. I was curious about Dan Raymer's experiences, and from what I could read from the various reviews, it sounded like it would be an entertaining book.I was not disappointed, the book was interesting about how he became an aircraft designer, and he talks about his life in the business. I enjoyed the reading, as it gives you insight as to how an aircraft designer thinks about things, what makes sense and what doesn't.As I read the book, I thought about his talent and hard work to achieve his dreams, so it is an inspiring book as well. The aircraft design work is mainly in the military aircraft, and not much talked about as far as general aviation design. Living in the Future is a great title, because the designer can use their imagination to create concepts that have an actual chance that it will work...in the future.The writing is 1st person, in Dan Raymer style, so I give it an interesting read and recommend this book for anyone that enjoys engineering and aviation.

Great book. The part which tells Dan's life is funny and interesting with a lot of great moments. The design projects part is a valuable fragment of the last US aerospace studies (navy trainer, ATF, F-35 development story...). A must for anyone interested in aerospace design and aircraft industry .If I could have a beer or two with a person for sure Dan would be the number one!