The best Engineering books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Thanks. I am almost done reading The Killing Zone, Second Edition: How & Why Pilots Die. I am not going to end up in the third edition.

He can get a used copy of the Fundamentals of Astrodynamics on Amazon for just $16.95

I highly recommend Stick and Rudder by Wolfgang Langewiesche. Written back before WW2 it has served many pilots of many eras. He writes in a way that makes co.plex aerodynamic ideas easily relatable to the "common man". My copy is well worn from many read throughs.

Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying https://www.amazon.com/dp/0070362408/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_lZXEBbBQ3YW93

In the case of these pilots, I think he was fair. If you haven't read his father's "Stick and Rudder" you might understand where he's coming from.

I mean Dragon with a Second stage is on the cover of Rocket Propulsion Elements in the eighth edition
and a F9 Dance Floor on the ninth

that's a kind of big one already

Play Kerbal Space Program (seriously). Then pick a book (like this one), it's a much better way to go.

https://www.amazon.com/Audel-Millwrights-Mechanics-Guide-Thomas/dp/0764541714

This is a good book. The uglys electrical is good. For YouTube “ave” or “this old tony.” He’s more of a machinist though. For ave look at his older stuff. He takes apart valves and stuff. Lots of good welding videos out there. “The engineering mindset” is a great Chanel for electrical work.

https://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Everything-Probably/dp/0123860016

Here is a book I recommend, starts from day 1 stuff, you can flip around where you need. There is free PDF online as well I think. Besides that, if you have the funds, I recommend asking your parents for an Arduino set and some come with project idea books and how to approach them. Other than that you can use codeacademy or other programming websites to teach you step by step.

Good luck!

IPT's Rotating Equipment training manual

Audels Millwrights and Mechanics manual

These will give you all the info for the mechanical aspects. Might want to check out /r/millwrights as well. I'm not sure what the testing is like, however the guys over there were sharing books that were specific to actual pre-apprenticeship tests. Math is not listed as a topic, however I'd definitely spend time brushing up on that.

​

I saw the job posting a couple weeks ago, do you know how many apprentices they are taking?

Electrical Engineering 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...but Probably Didn't By Darren Ashby. Excellent resource to brush up and tune-up your skills

I always recommend this book to new pilots, The Killing Zone, Second Edition: How & Why Pilots Die (Amazon Link).

It really dives into this from a data driven perspective from aircraft mishaps. It shows that pilots from 50-350 hours are at the highest risk of mishap, attributed to some of the things noted in this thread.

"A special chapter in this book will point out that the elevator is ac­tually the airplane's Angle of Attack control, and that its up-and­ down control is the throttle. The airplane in a normal glide is going down neither "because" the pilot is holding the stick back, nor "al­though" he is holding the stick back. It is going down because the throttle is closed! The position of the stick, the upward deflection of the flippers merely fixes the Angle of Attack and the air speed at which the airplane flies as it descends. Because the stick is held back-and the flippers are deflected upward-the airplane flies rather slowly and at rather large Angle of Attack." -Wolfgang Langewiesch, Stick And Rudder, 1944.

I've never seen an explanation of flight control manipulation dictate that one control should be ignored, while relying solely on another. The above paragraph (and chapter) has been the generally accepted proper method of manipulating flight controls in a coordinated manner. Which resource is directing pilots to do otherwise?

While not exactly synth based, I found the Make: Electronics book a very nice hands-on intro to basic electronics concepts.

https://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

And it's already been pointed out but Moritz Klein's YouTube series on VCO's is great. Follow along on a breadboard and you'll be good.

You'll need to read up on o-ring design. There are pretty well defined tolerances for the groove profile depending on the o-ring you want to use. I believe the IP ratings are strictly tests which must be passed to ensure water-tightness. Haven't looked at IP ratings since 2015, but I don't think there's much in the way of design criteria in those standards.

I've seen where the grooves are off maybe .006" and not hold pressure. I'd recommend having a copy of the Machinery's Handbook, but there are probably some good resources to describe o-ring design online as well.

This is a good place to start:

https://www.amazon.com/Machinerys-Handbook-29th-Erik-Oberg/dp/083112900X

Audels is more of an all around reference book for on the job stuff. 1200 pages of everything you can think of for millwrights. amazon link

But it is available on Zlibrary along with many other Audel trade books.

Have you read Stick and Rudder? I'm about 2/3 through it and can't recommend it enough. It has an extensive explanation of AoA and why it's so important in the first few chapters. Highly recommend reading this book.

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0070362408/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_t1_gBZcGb86B82B5

Stick and Rudder

I’ve had it on my shelf for a year while waiting for COVID to settle down so I can start my lessons. Started reading it this weekend and now can’t put it down. I’m maybe 1/3 through it and just constantly impressed with how it clears up so many questions I’ve had about what’s actually happening when you fly. I definitely think I’ll reread it the month I start my lessons up again.

https://smile.amazon.com/Stick-Rudder-Explanation-Art-Flying/dp/0070362408

"The Killing Zone" is a good book for student pilots in General Aviation. The tagline of the book is "how and why pilots die." Here is an amazon link. https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Zone-Second-How-Pilots/dp/0071798404

It's $20, and if you use Amazon Smile donations, please consider Candler Field Museum. Our founder, Ron Alexander, recently died in a Jenny crash here in town and the museum can use all the help we can get.

I love <em>Fundamentals of Astrodynamics</em> by Bate, Mueller, and White. Usually just referred to as "BMW." It's a really popular intro to orbital mechanics (it's what I learned on), and I think it was originally written for the Air Force Academy. Bonus is that it's on Amazon for like $16, and it's a pretty compact book.

Don’t stop there. Do IFR immediately after. It’ll tighten up your tolerances and a lot of the stuff that’s not clear to you now will be after that. Makes you a much safer pilot. Also, read some incident reports and study some crashes. It’ll teach you a lot. Read this also. Know the reasons for and effects of wing sweep and dihedral/anhedral angles. I’m sure your instructor will tell you, but always know what’s in the logbooks of your check ride plane and never ever offer more info to a DPE than they asked for. Many a student have failed the ride because they talked themselves into more questions than they were asked.

Just make sure you plan, prep your charts, get the weather, check the weather x 2, have a plan b just in case, file flight plan, enough fuel, some snacks, drinks, camera, and don't forget to close your flight plan when you land :)

&#x200B;

I always recommend a book for newer pilots, stick and rudder, good book.

That's a shame. It was cool that, for a while, we got to see neat commercial usage like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/0470080248

https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/1118753658

I've got a book suggestion for you. There's probably some better ones out there but it's the one I happened to read recently.

Make: AVR Programming

I think it's exactly what you're talking about doing and does a decent job of holding your hand to get you started while still showing you exactly what's going on.

The way things are explained in the book easily translates to using other AVR chips.

Excuse the expression but you're speaking out your ass. The weather was not good AND he knew it. He was doing his IR but not complete which is one of the most dangerous times in your training. I believe this "accident" is covered in The Killing Zone.

> Audels manual

https://www.amazon.ca/Audel-Millwrights-Mechanics-Guide-Thomas/dp/0764541714/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=audel+millwright&amp;qid=1662914595&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=Audel+mil%2Cstripbooks%2C138&amp;sr=1-3

This one?

If you like Maths and Circuits, look into embedded systems. Depending on how deep you want to go, you can work with circuits, maths (especially embedded is getting popular in AI, Digital Signal Processing etc etc). A lot of what you do here is low level and you dont always have the luxury of nice IDEs for e.g

I switched from a software engineer to embedded systems. I am currently doing my masters in it, I didn't enjoy software engineering. I always enjoyed tinkering with electronics as a kid, so this is something I really enjoy.

I do find it a bit more challenging, because my adhd makes it hard for me to read, a lot of embedded is going through pages and pages of datasheet, so that is kind of a bummer.

I would suggest you get a starter arduino kit or what I did was get this book: AVR Programming: Learning to Write Software for Hardware and an AVR programming kit, there are plenty of them, get a beginner one and then have a go at it, see if you enjoy it.

Fundamentals of Astrodynamics is a good one.
Playing Kerbal Space Program will give you a really good grasp of basic orbital mechanics too.

If you can find a copy of Stick and Rudder it has much better descriptions of how you can get into these sorts of spins and how to get out of them than I can type out here.

One way you might get into such a spin in a dogfight would be if you got really slow, especially when not in level flight. You end up with one wing stalled and dropping, another wing getting more lift, and you're right into autorotation/spin. Trying to recover from that is tricky since it's so easy to over-recover and just flip over to spinning the other direction.

Read the Bible of Flying - Stick and Rudder by Wolfgang Langewiesche. And try some videos like these. Stick to tail draggers, you will thank yourself -

&#x200B;

Fly Low, Take Chances...

Electrical Engineering 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...but Probably Didn't https://www.amazon.com/dp/0123860016/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_GCB59X9T5V8QRHF03KS8

This is a decent book to get the ball rolling. Also, CU Boulder has an online MS-EE that you should look into. It’s performance based so there are no admissions.