The Sir Sydney Camm Lecture was established in 1971, following Sir Sydney Camm’s death in 1966, to commemorate his significant achievements in the field of aeronautical engineering.

This event is organised by the IMechE and supported by the Aerospace Partnership.

We need to address the trend of achieving high performance goals (such as range, speed, manoeuvrability or low observability) at the expense of life-cycle cost economy. For more information, visit the website

This event is organised by the IMechE and supported by the Aerospace Partnership.

This event is organised by the IMechE and supported by the Aerospace Partnership.

This one-day seminar will examine the latest developments in the military aircraft technology industry, and will feature both the MoD and the manufacturers of military aircrafts, in order to examine how manufacturers and subcontractors can continue to meet procurer’s needs. For more information, visit the website

Speaker: David MacKay

Lecture Theatre, Boscombe Down - Tea, coffee and AGM from 17:00

 This lecture will be followed by an end-of-lecture season wine reception

 Visitors very welcome – to ensure entry, details must be supplied to [email protected] by mid-day 8^th April at the latest

Speaker: Michael K. Sinnett

Derby Branch 2011 Sir Henry Royce Lecture  to be delivered by Michael K. Sinnett, Vice President and Chief Project Engineer, 787; Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Time/Venue: 6:00pm, Rolls-Royce Learning and Career Development Centre, Wilmore Road, Derby.

Contact: [email protected]

Further details on this event will be available shortly.

Please do contact the Conference & Events Department for more information.

The Challenges & Opportunities Ahead

London Heathrow Airport is the world’s busiest international airport hub and the UK’s largest airport hub handling some 65.5 million passengers in 2010 – representing 30.2% of all UK traffic.   Despite significant improvements in terminal capacity through the T5 and Heathrow East projects, the airport continues to be constrained by its runway system.

Targeting & Delivering Effect for Future Force 2020

The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty, outlines the needs of the UK’s future force structure. This structure, Future Force 2020, will be a highly capable force ready to react, at various levels of intensity, to the complex threat scenarios that may develop in future.  It will be a flexible and expeditionary force based on fewer platforms that must be able to deliver effectors with a high degree of accuracy and in a timely manner by air, land or sea.

The threats Future Force 2020 is likely to meet will be challenging. For instance, the threat can use camouflage, concealment and deception measures, presenting targets that could be fleeting in nature. In addition, those threats may evolve more rapidly than our existing development cycles.  Moreover, it is anticipated that allied operations will be constrained by rules of engagement where collateral damage is unacceptable politically or legally.

For this transition to become a reality, the challenges of affordability must be met to provide these capability needs. Can we develop or adapt systems, technologies and operations to achieve this?

In order to address these issues, a classified conference is being organised by the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Weapon Systems and Technology Specialist Group.  This conference will focus on future operational needs, force structure or system concepts, targeting and weapon effects aligned to Future Force 2020.

The Future Rotorcraft: Enabling capability through the application of technology

The performance and utility of the ubiquitous edge wise rotary wing configured aircraft has reached a natural limit. The enormous strides taken by the fixed wing community in the development of increasingly efficient, mission focussed, cost effective, green and quick to market solutions have not been matched by the rotary wing community.  The barrier to matching the fixed wing community is not concepts or vision: it is the infrastructure of technology and manufacturing techniques that have contrived to hold our community back.  Learning lessons from the fixed wing community and adapting them to suit the needs of the rotary wing vehicle is our challenge and the time is now right to take on this challenge and succeed.

The rotary wing vehicle has always provided a niche capability, serving its operators well in situations where no other vehicle could achieve the desired result.  It has provided  search and rescue as well as emergency medical services that have saved countless lives, it has delivered military effect with great impact, it has supported the development and realisation of off shore energy delivery and it has connected city centres for convenient transportation.

Yet, despite these achievements the effectiveness of the rotary wing configuration has stagnated as one or two tried and tested configurations using the edge-wise rotor have dominated this mode of transport.
The V22 Osprey and BA609 have shown that other configurations are viable and offer significant performance benefits, but so far the tilt rotor has not shown that it can achieve a paradigm shift in respect of time to market and cost of ownership.  Recently, others have returned to concepts that may have been tried before but until now were only viable as one off prototypes or design studies that never left the drawing boards.

Enabling technologies related to materials, construction and design tools have matured in the fixed wing community and are beginning to find application to rotary wing solutions.  The inevitable and appropriate pressures of environment safety must also be recognised, accepted and converted from complex problem to cost effective solution.

Sponsored by:

Co Sponsors:

Speaker:  Miguel Santos

An engineer by training, Miguel is now responsible for sales to the Portuguese speaking nations as well as to South Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh. He is based in London.

Sir Geoffrey de Havilland memorial Lecture and Dinner

Branch contact: Maurice James Maurice James [email protected]

Merlin AAR Trial

More details on this Flight Test Group lecture will follow shortly.

About the speaker

Andy Strachan is the Deputy Chief Test Pilot at AugustaWestland.

Refreshments will be served from 17.30hrs and the lecture will commence at 18.00hrs.

Please RSVP to the Conference & Events Department at [email protected]

THE EVOLUTION, DEVELOPMENT & CHALLENGES OF COMMERCIAL AIR AMBULANCE OPERATIONS

Military helicopters have routinely provided casualty evacuation from war zones since the latter part of World War 2 up to the present day but, largely unnoticed outside the helicopter community; Alan Bristow was an early pioneer of civilian helicopters being used in the air ambulance role.

In the late 1940’s albeit in a war zone, Alan Bristow was the first civilian helicopter pilot to accept the challenges and overcome the difficulties of providing a casualty evacuation / air ambulance service with the small and underpowered Hiller 360. Alan’s sometimes hair raising flying exploits saw him awarded the Croix de Guerre for his work with the French military during the French Indo-China war.

Modern commercial air ambulance services have come a long way since those early days of single pilot operations using rudimentary helicopters with limited operating capabilities and cabin space. Starting in the late 80’s, Bond Air Services pioneered civil helicopter air ambulance operations in the UK using the Bolkow Bo105 and were fully committed to providing a comprehensive helicopter support network in this role. Such vision and commitment is why today, Bond is the biggest provider of helicopters for UK commercial air ambulance operations.

The helicopters used by Bond Air Services today are modern powerful airframes with a full suite of sophisticated flying aids that are fully equipped for the air ambulance role and routinely performing many ‘mercy missions’ on mainland UK every day. The flights are flown by the company’s highly trained professional flight crews who are able to place the doctors and paramedics alongside a casualty regardless of how remote or difficult it may be.

Captain Paul Westaway, Director of Commercial Services, Bond Air Services Ltd will set the scene and share the challenges and difficulties of providing a modern air ambulance service that works effectively on a regional basis with a large number of charitable and NHS hospital trusts.

About the speaker

Paul Westaway Joined the Cornwall Ambulance Service in 1980 as Control Room Assistant, and later moved on to frontline operational duties as a Qualified Ambulance-man by 1982. In 1983, he was promoted as a sub-officer in the ambulance service HQ, gaining an instructor’s qualification for both Ambulance Aid and Paramedic training by 1985.
He was then selected as Senior Air Crewman to fly on the UK’s first Air Ambulance in April 1987, and seconded to train and fly on first operational missions for Scotland in 1989 (Dundee), West Midlands in 1991 (Halfpenny Green) and Devon in 1992 (Exeter). Appointed as Director of Air Ambulance Development for Westcountry Ambulance Service 1992-1995 and later appointed as Staff Officer and Emergency Planning Officer for Devon, Cornwall and Somerset 1996-2001.
In 2001, Paul joined Bond as Emergency Services Manager, providing the company link between the customers (11 aircraft) and the company’s commercial operations and engineering department. Key milestones :
-    CRMI qualification – developed to CRMIE in 2010
-    General Secretary of the Confederation of Helicopter Ambulance Services, 2003-2008
-    British representative on CEN regulations working group for air ambulances, 2005-6
He was then appointed as Bond Training Services Manager to develop Bond Training Services and pilot training using the world’s first Eurocopter EC135 Level III FTD, 2005-2009. During this period FTD use developed from 450 hours per annum to 1950 hours per annum with worldwide customer base.
Currently Paul is the Director of Commercial since September 2009, overseeing the complete customer base including 18 air ambulance operations throughout the UK, along with marine, offshore wind, lighthouse, police and ad hoc markets.

The lecture will follow with a reception, kindly sponsored by -

Refreshments will be served from 17.30hrs and the lecture will commence at 18.00hrs.

Please RSVP to the Conference & Events Department at [email protected]

This afternoon briefing will be given by Hermione Giffard, a Guggenheim Fellow, Smithsonian Institute’s Air & Space Museum, Washington D.C.

The briefing will detail the early history of the development of the Turbojet Aero-Engine in Britain, Germany & the US from 1936-1945. Hermione will also discuss the varying goals of the British and German Aero-Engine  development programmes and the reasons that accompany their developmental purposes, further delving into the relative successes of the respective programmes by the time the Second World War had finished.

From Pioneers to Presidents: Celebrating a Century of Women in Flight

Following the success of last year’s RAeS Women in Aerospace & Aviation Conference, the 2011 Networking Event will celebrate a century of women’s acheivements in flight.

The Wonderful Women Ferry Pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary

The Royal Aeronautical Society is offering a unique opportunity to meet the few surviving women pilots who ferried every type of military aircraft during World War II, including fighters, huge four-engine bombers as the sole pilot and even the first British jet-engine aeroplane. By the end of the war, ATA pilots had each flown dozens of different aircraft, sometimes several in one day, often never having seen the aeroplane before, far less flown it.

During the seminar, you will hear why the ATA was such a unique organisation, how the women ferry pilots were trained and what they achieved, what an RAF bomber pilot thought of the young women who delivered aircraft to his base, and finally hear from the so-called ‘Spitfire Women’ themselves about their memories of these extraordinary times and their experiences.

At the end of this special seminar, the Royal Aeronautical Society will be making a presentation to the ATA women pilots present to honour their extraordinary achievements.

This Lecture will focus on the training of cockpit crew for Concorde. Together, Capt John Eames and SEO Roger Bricknell will discuss Flight Crew Training, highlighting the differences between Concorde and subsonic airliners that Pilots had to be trained to cope with. In addition, the lecture will touch on the novelty and complexity of Concorde at the time of its introduction, including fly-by-wire control of the centre of gravity by fuel transfer, behaviour at high incidence, adjustable air intakes and exhausts, the reduced range in subsonic flight and the emergency procedures for pressurisation problems at 60,000ft.

For more than half a century now, the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS) has provided for the world’s aerospace engineers, scientists, technologists and managers, the preeminent forum to present and discuss the latest developments in aeronautics. This remarkable apolitical organization founded by Theodore von Karman and his international colleagues, continues to build on its impressive heritage, to be even more relevant to the global aerospace and aviation industries. This world congress staged biennially by ICAS is the key opportunity for those committed to serving those industries to meet, present, discuss and create opportunities that can only be done in such an international environment.