RDS-Student: Software for Aircraft Design, Sizing, And Performance (AIAA Education Series)

I purchased this item with the hopes that it would be an easy application to use. It is not. I took me almost an hour to get the thing installed. What makes it worse is the fact that it is DOS based. For guys like me,I like having a graphical user interface. I sent an email to the author and he stands by his decision and complains that he is the only one that has worked on the software. Once installed several things didn't work because it couldn't find the associated files to open. The help section is useless and trying to find an email address to even ask questions or report errors was next to impossible to find. In my opinion the author of the software may know his stuff about designing aircraft but is pretty weak in the software writing department.This could probably be a great piece of software if it in fact had a decent GUI. But alas it does not and from the emails that I received back (my emails that I sent were a little scathing)there is nothing in the future that says that the software will be upgraded to today's technology level. I recommend to the author of this software to hire some software folks and have them go through it and rewrite to have a GUI interface and reduce the price point. You pay for convenience but in this case $80.00-$100.00 for DOS based software is just to much.This also limits the OS unless you are willing to locate and install something called DOSBOX. Software is supposed to be easy to install. The installer should know where everything is supposed to be and be able to put files in there respective places. The installer on the disk didn't work and I had to download an upgrade for it to work. To those of you thinking about this application, I would say look farther and spend a little more because you will be a lot happier.

I was excited to get this program, until I tried to install it. I had to download and install a shell program to let me install RDS, then run it in a DOS window, using command line entries for input. I'm sure the program is powerful and feature laden, but I'm totally frustrated trying to use it.Add to that, Dr Raymer points out in a FAQ, that the program works mainly as an adjunct to his textbook on design, and doesn't work too well if your design background came from his book on simplified design for the homebuilder. I might get some use out of it at some point, but I'm doubtful. Not a good price/value item, being that it doesn't have a Windows interface.

It's too old. The software is only 2.3MB and I cannot use it because it is incompatible with my computer.

This version for DOS has so many technical problems running on current hardware it had to go back. There are multiple entries for this software and they are not very clear about which version is being offered. The most current is version 6, also called RDSwin or RDS for windows. It installs and runs fine, but the interface is still stone age.