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.

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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.

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.

The French Air & Space Academy will be visiting the UK and will host an informative evening of aerospace lectures. The evening will commence with a presentation of the Air & Space Academy hosted by Gerard Brachet and will be followed by three short presentations by aerospace experts.

Taking place on the 13th & 14th April 2011 at the Society’s Headquarters, Aerospace 2011: Funding the Future will focus on Aerospace & Aviation in an Age of Austerity and address how both the civil and defence communities can look to overcome economic uncertainties and grow business in the coming years.

AEROSPACE FOR EUROPE – MORE THAN JUST FLYING

High Value, Low Carbon, Europes Future

The most important multistakeholder high level roundtable congress in Brussels in December 2010.
This is the aerospace event of the year where decision maker of the most leading European industry, politics and research meet.

Change!  Innovation!  Vision 2050!