About the Author
J. Gordon Leishman, B.Sc. (Hons.), Ph.D., D.Sc.(Eng.), F.R.Ae.S., is Professor Emeritus of Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland. He is best known for his work on unsteady aerodynamics and has made significant contributions to the understanding of rotorcraft, wind turbine, and aerospace vehicle aerodynamics. Dr. Leishman has written four books and has received numerous awards and honors for his work.
Dr. Leishman’s main areas of interest and expertise include unsteady aerodynamics, dynamic stall, aeroacoustics, two-phase fluid dynamics, advanced flow measurement methods and diagnostics, wind tunnel testing, and aircraft flight testing. He was an aerodynamicist for Westland Helicopters in England from 1983 to 1986. He joined the University of Maryland faculty in 1986 and retired in 2014 as the Minta Martin Professor of Engineering after 28 years of service. He subsequently joined the faculty at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where he served as a Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering before retiring. He is now Professor Emeritus at both Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of Maryland.
Dr. Leishman has authored over 300 technical papers and reports, with more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He is ranked #25 out of 1,165 prominent aerospace engineers for career impact in Elsevier’s elite top 2% list of the world’s scientists. Dr. Leishman has also advised over 100 students for their M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, many of whom now hold leadership positions in government and industry or faculty positions at other universities.
Many of Dr. Leishman’s mathematical modeling techniques for helicopter rotor aerodynamics are widely used and have been incorporated into helicopter and wind turbine analysis and design methodologies. His experimental measurements of rotor wakes, rotor blade tip vortices, and rotor/airframe interactions have also served as benchmark test cases for computational model validation. He was a contributing designer to the AgustaWestland Project Zero electric rotorcraft demonstrator, which flew successfully in 2011.
Dr. Leishman is the author of four books: Principles of Helicopter Aerodynamics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2000, with a second edition published in 2006; The Helicopter – Thinking Forward, Looking Back, published in 2009; the eBook Introduction to Aerospace Flight Vehicles, first published in 2022; and Dimensional Analysis for Engineers and Scientists, first published in 2026.
Dr. Leishman has served on technical and advisory committees for NASA, DARPA, DoD, DoE, and GAO. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Helicopter Society from 2004 to 2007 and has served as an Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal of Aircraft. Dr. Leishman is a Member of ASEE, an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, a Technical Fellow of the Vertical Flight Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
Dr. Leishman is a private pilot with ratings in airplanes and gliders and has over 1,600 hours of flight time. In gliding, he holds a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Gold Award with two diamonds. In his leisure time, he restores and rides vintage motorcycles over 50 years old and maintains a collection of American and British motorcycles in Florida, the oldest of which dates to 1911. He has received numerous national and regional awards for his Concours-standard motorcycle restorations.
Contact the author via email at [FlightVehicles.eBook@gmail.com](mailto:FlightVehicles.eBook@gmail.com).
