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1i f

NEWS IN BRIEF

DECEMBER 2016@aerosociety Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

Contents

Comment

Buckle up for turbulence

Regulars

Afterburner

A change in powerThe varied technologies for improving helicopter performance.

Making of a heroClint Eastwood, director of ‘Sully’, speaks about how the ‘miracle of the Hudson’ was adapted for the big screen.

4 RadomeThe latest aviation and aeronautical intelligence, analysis and comment.

10 Antenna Howard Wheeldon asks what next for Eurofi ghter.

12 TransmissionYour letters, emails, tweets and feedback.

58 The Last WordKeith Hayward looks at what lies ahead for Heathrow’s plans to build a third runway.

42 Message from our President

43 Message from our Chief Executive

44 Book Reviews

47 Library additions

48 Sir Henry Royce Lecture

49 150th Anniversary gifts

50 Stepping up to Management

51 New at the NAL

52 Diary

55 Corporate Partners

56 RAeS Elections

57 Obituary

41

Features

Falling with styleStudents at the University of Southampton aim to set new wing-suit world records.

Visions of the futureHow many predictions about the future of aviation made by RAeS experts in 1966 actually came true?

18 30

26

Volume 43 Number 12 December 2016

Correspondence on all aerospace matters is welcome at: The Editor, AEROSPACE, No.4 Hamilton Place, London W1J 7BQ, UK [email protected]

3

10,000 and climbingThe lessons for new-entry aircraft manufacturers from Airbus’ road to success.

Plane SpeakingAn interview with Kevin Cummings CEO of GKN Aerospace.

22

14

After the surprise outcome of the UK’s Brexit referendum – another shock result has been the US Presidential election win for Donald Trump – a person who has never held government offi ce. What does the election of this outsider mean for aerospace and defence? With aerospace being a truly global industry, there are already fears that a Trump Presidency could do damage to this sector by knee-jerk reactions that could spark a trade war. Trade tariffs, for example, on ‘foreign’ airliners could negatively impact jobs at US aerospace companies. Trump has already demonstrated what might be considered to be a limited understanding of the aerospace manufacturing industry – accusing Boeing of moving its manufacturing jobs to China after seemingly getting mixed-up that a Boeing 737 interior and paint completions centre in China was full fi nal assembly production line. Trump’s calls to tear up two international free trade agreements (the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and TPP (Trans-Pacifi c Partnership) between the US and Europe and Pacifi c could also lead to a slowing of growth around the globe. However, there may be some positive news for passengers, as part of Trump’s acceptance speech mentioned an ambitious $600bn ‘New Deal’ style stimulus plan to create jobs by modernising US infrastructure – with airports one of the sectors mentioned. Meanwhile, there could be signifi cant shifts in US defence and foreign policy, as it is known that Trump tilts towards an isolationist stance and has drawn fi re for his pro-Russian links. With Congress also now Republican, there is now an end to the Sequestration stand-off. Most worryingly for Europe, Trump has hinted that NATO Article V, the bedrock that guarantees that ‘an attack on one, is an attack on all’, is up for discussion if he considers NATO allies are not pulling their weight. What is certain for this President is unpredictability. Buckle up for the ride on Trump’s Air Force One, we may be in for turbulence. Tim Robinson

[email protected]

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Editor-in-ChiefTim Robinson +44 (0)20 7670 4353 [email protected]

Deputy Editor Bill Read +44 (0)20 7670 4351 [email protected]

Publications Manager Chris Male +44 (0)20 7670 4352 [email protected]

Production Editor Wayne J Davis +44 (0)20 7670 4354 [email protected]

Book Review EditorBrian Riddle

Editorial Offi ceRoyal Aeronautical SocietyNo.4 Hamilton PlaceLondon W1J 7BQ, UK+44 (0)20 7670 4300 [email protected]

AEROSPACE is published by the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS).

Chief Executive Simon C Luxmoore

Advertising Simon Levy+44 (0)20 7670 [email protected]

Unless specifi cally attributed, no material in AEROSPACE shall be taken to represent the opinion of the RAeS.

Reproduction of material used in this publication is not permitted without the written consent of the Editor-in-Chief.

Printed by Buxton Press Limited, Palace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE, UK

Distributed by Royal Mail

AEROSPACE subscription rates: Non-members, £155

Please send your order to: Dovetail Services Ltd, 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8GU, UK. +44 (0)1795 592939+44 (0)844 856 0650 (fax)[email protected]

Any member not requiring a print version of this magazine, please contact: [email protected]

USA: Periodical postage paid at Champlain New York and additional offi ces.

Postmaster: Send address changes to IMS of New York, PO Box 1518, Champlain NY 12919-1518, USA.

ISSN 2052-451X

38

34 A game for dronesThe Royal Navy’s Unmanned Warrior 16 naval exercise and its implications for autonomous systems.

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OnlineAdditional features and content are available to view online on www.media.aerosociety.com/

aerospace-insightIncluding: Management predictions from 1966,

Aerospace and a Trump presidency, Redressing

the balance, Airbus delivers 10,000th aircraft,

London’s runways – into the fi nal act?, A

preview of November’s AEROSPACE,

A game for drones, Rafale deal

sealed at last, Faster fuel

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Front cover: USAF HH-60 Pave Hawks over Alaska. (USAF)

4

Radome

AEROSPACE / DECEMBER 2016

DEFENCE

Chinese stealth on show

INTELLIGENCE / ANALYSIS / COMMENT

Airshow China 2016 held in Zhuhai on 6-11 November saw the much-awaited fi rst public appearance of China’s secretive new Chengdu J-20 stealth fi ghter. Two J-20s appeared briefl y at the show, one of which did a longer fl ypast. The J-20 is a fi fth-generation stealth fi ghter aircraft developed by Chengdu Aerospace for China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The aircraft in the display, sporting a new grey splinter camoufl age, are believed to be two of four low-rate initial production (LRIP) examples, although one report claims that up to 11 LRIP airframes have been produced. The fi rst prototype J-20 fl ew on 11 January 2011 and the aircraft could enter service as early as 2017 after operational evaluation at Dingxin air base.

Cockpit and avionicsInformation on the J-20’s avionics and systems is patchy but the fi ghter does feature a large HUD. In addition, cockpit mock-ups at Zhuhai showed a large F-35-like widescreen display, centre pedestal MFD display, standby instruments and an upfront controller. The fi ghter is believed to be equipped with a KKJ-5 AESA radar and also sports a chin-mounted EO/IRST sensor, similar to the F-35’s faceted window EOTS.

5DECOMBER 2016fi@aerosociety Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

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Specifi cationsCrew: one Length: 20m (66.8ft)Wingspan: 13m (44.2ft)

Mystery missionChina has been tight-lipped over what the J-20's precise role will be in service with the PLAAF, and whether it is indeed a fi ghter or a stealth strike aircraft. However, informed observers have speculated that a large combat aircraft could be optimised for long-range Pacifi c air superiority – particularly to go after high-value assets, such as tankers and AWACS.

EnginesThe engines for the J-20 prototype are believed to have been derivatives of the Russian AL-31 or Chinese Shenyang WS-10 turbofan engines but these may be replaced by the more powerful Saturn AL-31F 117S engine used on the Su-35S or China’s own WS-15 turbofan engine, enabling the fi ghter to accelerate to supercruise without using afterburners. The engines do not appear to have thrust vectoring capabilities.

6

Radome


NEWS IN BRIEF

CFM International has delivered its 30,000th CFM56 turbofan. The engine manufacturer is also ramping up production of its new LEAP engine of which it will produce around 100 in 2016 and over 2,000 engines per year by 2020.

Launch customer for the Bombardier CSeries 300 AirBaltic is set to begin operations with the CS300 on 14 December.

A female Chinese fi ghter pilot from the PLAAF ‘August 1st’ display team was killed on 12 November after a mid-air collision between two J-10 fi ghters during a practice session. Her co-pilot, it was reported, ejected safely.

NASA is to begin launching a suite of six small cube sats on a variety of Earth-observation missions. The satellites will comprise RAVAN

(Radiometer Assessment using Vertically Aligned Nanotubes) to be launched in November which will be followed in 2017 by IceCube and HARP, (Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter) to be launched in Spring 2017, MiRaTA (Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration), CYGNSS (Cyclone, Global Navigation Satellite System and TROPICS (Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure

and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats).

Indian air charter specialists Premair has taken delivery of the fi rst Bell 407GXP helicopter to be delivered in India. The aircraft was ordered earlier this year and has been outfi tted for corporate and VIP transport.

Boeing Space and Defense is to shed 500 jobs over the next four years as part of a

consolidation of sites in the US. Meanwhile, a new BDS Boeing Defense Global Operations group, (including UK, Saudi Arabia and Australia) will be run from the UK.

Kazakhstan’s fl ag carrier Air Astana has taken delivery of its fi rst A320neo. The aircraft, which is leased from ALC, is the fi rst neo for a CIS carrier and will join 13 A320s already operated by Air Astana.

AIR TRANSPORT

A company, Amphibian Aerospace Industries (AAI), is planning to resume production of the Grumman G-111/HU-16 Albatross amphibian, which fi rst fl ew in 1947. The revamped Albatross will be based on the G-111 commercial model and will be powered by modern turboprops. AAI

AEROSPACEAlbatross back from the dead

has signed an agreement to remanufacture the

H-111T Turbo Albatross at a A$100m

factory in New South Wales, Australia. Meanwhile, an Albatross

is also set to be the star of

an upcoming movie documentary on fl ying boats currently being fi lmed by Flying Boat Films.

Kuznetsov goes to war

On 15 November Russia begun a series of intensive air and naval strikes on anti-regime forces in Aleppo, Syria. The attacks included the fi rst ever combat operations from the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, as well as cruise missile strikes. Equipped with Su-33 and MiG-29Ks, the Kuznetsov lost a MiG-29K on 14 November, with the pilot ejecting safely.

GENERAL AVIATION

for a further six ATR 72-600s. Meanwhile,

South America’s Synergy Aerospace has placed an order for 12 ATR 72- 600

(and six options) for its Argentinean

airline Avian Líneas Aéreas.

DEFENCE

Rus

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MoD

Flying Boat Film

The UK Government has given the go-ahead for the construction of a third 3,500m runway at London Heathrow Airport which would increase the capacity of the airport from 480,000 fl ights per year to 740,000. The decision, which was approved by ministers at a cabinet committee meeting on 25 October, has been welcomed by a wide number of unions and business groups and criticised by some ministers, local resident groups and environmental campaigners. A study led by Sir Howard Davis and published in 2015 recommended a third runway at Heathrow. Planning for the new runway is expected to take up to four years with another six years needed for construction.

ATR wins Latin American deals

Third Heathrow runway approved

Turboprop manufacturer ATR has won a fi rm order for eight ATR -600 aircraft from Mexican regional airline Aeromar. The purchase splits into six ATR 72-600s and two ATR-42 -600s with options

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7i f DECEMBER 2016

Leonardo has delivered the fi rst two of eight M346 advanced trainers to the Polish Air Force. The fi rst group of six Polish pilots graduated from the M346 instructors course in Italy in October. Airbus Safran Launchers' Ariane 6 launcher has received a commitment from the ESA for the fi nal €1.7bn tranche of funding for development of this rocket.

On 4 November, Bombardier’s new Global 7000 business jet made its maiden fl ight from the company's facility in Toronto, Canada. The aircraft will begin a fl ight test programme leading up to entry into service in the second half of 2018.

Embraer's E170 and the E175 regional jets have received type certifi cates from the Federal Air Transport Agency of

the Russian Federation, allowing the aircraft to be used by Russian operators. Embraer’s E190 and E195 jets have already been certifi ed in Russia and the E195 is already being fl own by Saratov Airlines.

British Airways is to increase seating density on its Gatwick-based Boeing 777 fl eet to ten abreast, as well as its Airbus short-haul fl eet in an attempt to lower the average cost per seat and

improve competitiveness. Seats on 25 BA 777s will be increased from 280 to 332 from 2018.

The UK MoD has awarded Raytheon UK a £131m contract to extend the support of the RAF Sentinel R1 spyplane to 2021. However, despite the intention outlined in SDSR 2015 to reduce numbers, no decision will be made on reducing the Sentinel fl eet from fi ve to four until March 2017.

.ESA’s Schiaparelli unmanned lander is now believed to have crashed onto the surface of Mars due to a software glitch. Schiaparelli was released over the Red Planet from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on 19 October but lost contact during the fi nal stages of the landing. ESA scientists believe that the probe may have jettisoned its parachute too early and not fi red its thrusters for long enough.

SPACEFLIGHT DEFENCE

The Royal Air Force has concluded a training, goodwill and defence diplomacy tour of Asia-Pacifi c. The deployment included the fi rst ever visit by the RAF Red Arrows to China, where the team put on nine displays at the Zhuhai Air Show, as well

RAF concludes Asia-Pacifi c tour

@aerosociety Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

as displays and visits to India, Pakistan, Oman and

the UAE. Meanwhile, RAF Typhoons

have also taken part in the fi rst ever joint exercise Guardian

North 16 with Japan’s JASDF, as

well as the fi rst ever UK-US-RoK exercise Invincible Shield, in South Korea.

At Centennial Airport in Denver, US start-up Boom Aerospace has unveiled a XB-1 sub-scale supersonic demonstrator mock-up, designed to de-risk technologies for a planned 40-seat, Mach 2.2 airliner. The one-third scale XB-1 is powered by three GE Aviation J85-21 engines and is set to fl y in late 2017 with supersonic testing to take place at Edwards AFB. Boom has already won 25 commitments from two airlines for its larger airliner.

Baby boomer

As AEROSPACE goes to press, the latest crew for the ISS, Expedition 50/51 is set to launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Soyuz Soyuz MS-03 crew consists of NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet. They join Robert S Kimbrough (NASA), Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko (Roscosmos) who launched to the station in October.

Latest ISS crew set to launch

On 28 October passengers were forced to evacuate an American Airlines Boeing 767 after a blown tyre caused an engine fi re at Chicago's O'Hare airport. Eight people out of the 161 onboard were reported with minor injuries after an attempted take-off was aborted and emergency slides deployed. Initial reports suggest an

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AEROSPACE

MoD

Two separate airliner fi res at US airports

uncontained failure of the right engine with debris being found half a mile away. Meanwhile, on the same day, a FedEx MD-10 freighter at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport also caught fi re after its landing gear collapsed on the runway. Both FedEx crew members escaped safely.


Quest Aircraft has won an order for 20 of its STOL Kodiak turboprops from Japanese charter company SkyTrek.

Chinese manufacturer COMAC has announced plans to build a 280-seat twin-engined wide-body jet in partnership with United Aircraft Corporation in Russia. Called the C929, the new aircraft would take seven years to develop and a further three to conduct

fl ight tests prior to fi rst deliveries. The C929 is expected to be powered by GE or Rolls-Royce engines.

The European Commission has ordered three airlines to repay €12.7m in illegal state aid given by Klagenfurt airport in Austria. The airlines involved are Ryanair (ordered to repay about €2m), TUIfl y (€1.1m) and HLX (€9.6m).

Textron AirLand’s Scorpion reconnaissance and light

attack jet has completed a weapons exercise at the White Sands Missile Range. The three-month tests included weapons system design, integration and fl ight test co-ordination for three weapon types.

Japan launched a two-stage H-2A rocket into orbit on 3 November carrying the four-ton Himawari 9 Earth observation satellite. Built by the Mitsubishi Electric Corp and operated by

the Japan Meteorological Agency, the satellite will monitor images of typhoons and severe weather.

On 31 October, Cirrus Aircraft’s new Vision Jet was awarded FAA certifi cation. Billed as the world’s fi rst single-engine ‘personal jet’, the Vision Jet is powered by a Williams FJ33 engine and can seat up to fi ve. It is also equipped with an airframe ballistic parachute system.

Aurora Flight Sciences is to develop an unmanned cargo version of the UH-1H Huey. The Tactical Autonomous Aerial Logistics System (TALOS) will see a demonstrator fl y in 2017.

Despite passenger numbers rising by 6.6%, easyJet pre-tax profi ts to 21 September fell 27.9% due to a year of challenges, including terror attacks and a tumbling pound.

NEWS IN BRIEF

RadomeGENERAL AVIATION

Rockwell Collins buys B/E Aerospace

The US DoD has assigned the fi rst nations to provide maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrades for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. The UK will support European F-35s with avionics and aircraft component sustainment via a partnership with the MoD’s Defence Electronics and Components Agency, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman at MoD Sealand in Wales. Meanwhile, The Netherlands and Australia are also set to be MRO and upgrade centres for the F-35.

Popular ridesharing and global taxi company Uber has

released its vision of future aerial transportation, called

Uber Elevate. It predicts that, within ten years, aerial taxis

will be available for urban areas, with piloted aircraft fi nally

giving way to fully automated ‘fl ying cars’. The company

does not plan to produce vehicles itself but is positioning

itself to deliver ‘on-demand’ aerial transport services

once available and ‘collaborate with vehicle developers,

regulators, city and national governments, and other

community stakeholders’.

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On 11 November a ULA Atlas V launched the WorldView 4 commercial imagery satellite from Vandenberg AFB in California. WorldView 4, owned by DigitalGlobe, doubles the amount of 30cm resolution imagery available to customers.

DEFENCE

Avionics, simulation systems specialists Rockwell Collins is to acquire cabin interiors company B/E Aerospace for $8.3bn – the biggest ever acquisition in its 83-year history. The deal, valued $6.4bn in cash plus $1.9bn of debt extends

Uber says ‘fl ying cars’ only a decade away

AEROSPACE

Rockwell’s reach into airline seating, gallery and cabin interiors products that B/E

provides – as well as more aftermarket

opportunities. If approved by shareholders and regulators,

the merged company will

have almost 30,000 employees, and have $8.1bn in revenue.

US assigns F-35 global MRO hubs

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GENERAL AVIATION

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Kelly Ortberg has been named the new CEO of Rockwell Collins.

Air France-KLM EVP engineering and maintenance, Franck Terner, is to become the next CEO of Air France.

President Mugabe's son-in-law, Simba Chikore, will become the new COO of Air Zimbabwe.

ON THE MOVE


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Airbus and UAE carrier Etihad Airways Engineering have signed a MoU to develop new A380 maintenance services for third parties. The co-operation agreement will use parts from Airbus' Satair inventory management subsidiary and see A380 MRO services and upgrades available in Abu Dhabi from 2017.

Portland-based heavy lift rotary-wing specialist Erickson has fi led for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, amid a sustained downturn in the oil and gas industries. The company, which is around $561m

in debt, has also been hit by the drawdown

of US military operations in Afghanistan. The company operates

a fl eet of 69 rotary and

fi xed-wing aircraft, including its famous S-64 Aircrane.

AIR TRANSPORT

The Airbus Group has appointed Rodin Lyasoff as CEO of its advanced projects and partnerships company A³.

Bart Reijnen, formerly a SVP Airbus DS, is now CEO of Satair Group, succeeding Mikkel Bardram.

Pat Norris FRAeS has been awarded a 'Sir Arthur Clarke Award' for Lifetime Achievement to spacefl ight by the British Interplanetary Society.

Weight of debt grounds Erickson

Airbus, Etihad partner for A380 MRO

Erickson

AEROSPACE

Singapore is to purchase Airbus Helicopters H225M Caracals and Boeing CH-47F Chinooks for the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF). No number to be acquired is given but the Singaporean Minef says a ‘fewer number’ of these will replace the older 32 AS332 Super Pumas and 16 CH-47SDs currently in service.

Angel of mercy

INFOGRAPHIC: Asteroid mining – a new outer space gold rush?

SPACEFLIGHT

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) has announced that it is ready to support dedicated air-dropped humanitarian missions using a company-owned Predator C Avenger UAV demonstrator, called ‘Angel One’. The UAV, says GA-ASI, would be able to feed 3,400 people a day by dropping 8,400lb of humanitarian ration packs from internal bays.

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antenna:

To the various air forces that operate the Eurofi ghter Typhoon and from the many conversations that I have had with the pilots that fl y them, it is genuinely diffi cult to fi nd anyone prepared to talk of the

aircraft as not being superb to fl y, fantastic in terms of overall mission capability and the best military combat jet that Europe has ever produced.

Eurofi ghter is the result of what has and remains Europe’s largest military industrial collaboration programme. Considered to be an enormous success in relation to military capability, it offers to partner governments and export customers and very importantly also in respect of industrial economic returns, jobs and skills retention. Since the aircraft fi rst entered operational service in 2004 more than 500 aircraft have so far been built and delivered to six nations – Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain together with the two initial export customers, Austria and Saudi Arabia. In 2012 Oman became the seventh customer for Eurofi ghter, ordering 12 aircraft through the UK and, in 2016, Kuwait signed contracts with the Italian partners to acquire 28 fi ghters

To facilitate the volume and rate of deliveries to the four core nations in the Eurofi ghter management agency NETMA, (which acts on behalf of the four partner nations in the programme) had established four assembly lines, one each in Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. The production plan has worked remarkably well but, with fewer than 60 aircraft from the original partner aircraft orders likely to be outstanding as we enter 2017, it is natural to expect that, notwithstanding further anticipated export orders for Typhoon, that the delivery rate and volumes from the four assembly facilities will need to reduce as they transition to new roles, such as the long-term MRO and sustainment of the Europe-wide fl eet.

While deliveries to the core partner nations are drawing toward a conclusion, export opportunities for Eurofi ghter Typhoon remain very much alive. While BAE Systems has scaled back on Typhoon aircraft assembly, the company continues to produce component parts and remains ready for anticipated export sales. The list of potential export customers remains large with campaigns running

Global Outlook and Analysis with HOWARD WHEELDON

Eurofighter Typhoon ...what next?

in a number of Gulf-based countries, Malaysia and, interestingly, in Belgium and Finland. Indeed, having followed the Eurofi ghter export sales programme very closely since its inception, I would suggest that that the number of export campaigns that are current has probably never been greater.

So, while it is true that due to timing and other issues, fi nal assembly rate and volumes are likely to scale back, with concomitant transition of the four assembly facilities across Europe, manufacturing remains very much alive and well and the aircraft undoubtedly has very good future prospects.

Full spectrum evolution

Beyond the manufacturing debate, investment in the continued capability evolution of Typhoon continues apace. For instance, in March 2019, Royal Air Force Typhoon aircraft are planned to pick up the full spectrum of UK combat air capability as the three, (by then likely just two), remaining squadrons of Panavia Tornado GR4 aircraft are fi nally retired.

The ability for Typhoon to soon have full spectrum capability and to deliver a wider arsenal of complex weapons, combined with the growing reputation of the jet as being platform of choice in contingent operations are of course, all important from an export perspective as well. Full spectrum capability able to provide users with exceptional levels of fl exibility, accuracy, reliability and, of course, rapid delivery of combat air effects will make Typhoon all but unbeatable.

DECEMBER 2016@aerosociety Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com 11i f

ONE THING IS FOR SURE, BRITAIN WILL NEVER AGAIN IN MY VIEW GO IT ALONE ON A MANNED FAST COMBAT JET PROGRAMME

With the continued investment in future capability evolution (AESA, potential for SPEAR 3 etc) across an expanding customer base, Eurofi ghter will not only offer users much needed full spectrum capability that translates to robust and cost-effective military air power platform capability but also one that can sustain key technologies and skills within the Europe’s still wide defence industrial base.

Longer term future?

But what of the longer term future for manned air power capability? In the very competitive world of fast jet sales and government-to-government sales in which the buyer holds most of the cards, it is the Lockheed Martin F-35 that heads the list of programmes that are likely to still be in production 20 years from now. Given the 15% workshare enjoyed by UK-based companies on the programme, that is clearly good news for Britain. Other legacy fi ghter still in production, such as the Saab Gripen, Dassault Rafale, Lockheed Martin F-16, Boeing F-15 and F/A-18, continue to vie hard in international markets for new sales and, with none of the manufacturers involved likely to pull the plug on these if they can avoid doing so, some of these may well remain in production well into the 2030s.

But at some point over the next fi ve or six years, Britain will need to decide whether aircraft such as the F-35, Eurofi ghter and Rafale plus other legacy combat jets still in production, mark the end of manned fast jet aircraft capability. The UK may have to make this decision individually or collectively, perhaps with the US or (despite Brexit) with France or even Germany and Italy. The jury is just going out but, I for one, fi rmly believe that one more generation of manned combat jets will be required. The US already appears to be moving in that direction.

For Britain, the immediate future continues to be based on delivering Tranche 3 Typhoon complex weapon delivery and radar enhancement,

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bringing the F-35 into service for carrier strike and continuing (and perhaps further developing) the partnership with France. The two nations have already signed a commitment to produce a prototype Future Combat Air Systems (FCAS) system, a UCAV that might eventually form the basis for future requirements for European members of NATO. But can we still go further in partnership terms? As it appears that we are in no mood to go it alone, I hope that we will.

Forward in collaboration

Compared to the commitment made by the UK and by the US in relation to the JSF development programme, it is true the FCAS agreement made with France appears to be quite small. But it is at least a start and it shows that the potential for further European collaboration remains.

We have been there before, of course, and while hard lessons on collaborative projects have needed to be learned from government partner programmes such as Eurofi ghter development and, more recently, from the A400M programme we should not lose sight of many successful projects that the UK has previously enjoyed with France, such as the SEPECAT Jaguar or the hugely successful Panavia Tornado. Neither should we ignore the partnership between France, Italy and the UK that is MBDA.

One thing is for sure, Britain will never again in my view go it alone on a manned fast combat jet programme and neither, with the possible exception of France, will any other European NATO member either. Collaboration will be the order of the day whether we like it or not. For the moment, Britain does at least retain the ability to design and build fast military jets and to continually upgrade them as required. We still have the design engineers, the technicians and the necessary engineering skills base to achieve whatever we might want but the trouble is that we are undecided about the desire to build and whether there are the funds available.

In this low risk age, if we do decide that we need to develop another manned fast jet in Europe and that we don’t wish to buy-off-the-shelf, then the way forward can only be a more concise collaborative partnership than any that have gone before. FCAS could be pointing the way forward and, at the very least, it will keep Britain and France in the forefront of military aerospace design, albeit in unmanned aircraft. As I am on record as saying before: “The days of designing and building squadrons of English Electric Lightning fi ghter jets [on our own] are probably gone for good but there is still light at the end of the tunnel. It is a different kind of light today, one that says British expertise in specialist areas and partnerships, in design and in the most advanced technologies is the ultimate long term way forward for our defence aerospace industry.”


TransmissionLETTERS AND ONLINERe-investing in defence?How predictable to see the EU fall over itself aghast at the election of President Elect Trump. Also how typical to hear Mr Juncker repeat his call for the setting up of a European Army so that “Europe can become a global power”, as the new EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs has suggested! Further proof that the EU just doesn’t get the fact that a new dynamics sweeping away the tired, comfy, ineffective old order which has failed to step up to new challenges in a very dangerous world. Setting up a rival European Army would probably terminally damage NATO and would have little to show for all the extra expenditure other than yet another shiny new headquarters building. At some stage Mrs May will have to replace Chancellor Hammond, who is the least enthusiastic in her Cabinet for increasing defence spending in real terms. The UK, following the Brexit decision and the election of Mr Trump in the US, and continued dithering in Brussels, now has an unusually favourable political backdrop in which

iNick Carpenter [On Heathrow third runway] With the British Chamber of Commerce estimating the wider economic benefi ts of a third runway at LHR at £595m it is hard to understand why something concrete has not been done. In the time it has taken to pontifi cate about this the Australians have decided on a site for the new Sydney airport, Hong Kong has built a bridge to Macau, the Chinese have expanded their aviation footprint beyond recognition and we have allowed ourselves to lag behind risking Heathrow’s pre-eminent position as a hub. Extraordinary!

Matthew Pakes I’m disappointed a decision hasn’t been made after all this time. The lack of negotiating power bought about by the lack of landing slots has caused us trouble I’ve no doubt.

to set an example and signifi cantly re-invest in defence, to better protect ourselves, strengthen NATO and to restore respect in the Anglo-US defence relationship. It could also give a much-needed boost to our struggling defence

industrial sector which has been starved of orders for our own Services, which underpin export sales. This will require real leadership and ending the deep-rooted denial culture in the MoD and the Treasury that pretends things are getting better rather than

I was until recently an AME (aviation medical examiner). One day, some years ago, a professional pilot came to see me for a renewal of his Class 1 medical licence. During the course of his medical he remarked to me that, in the past, the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) had their own aircraft and that he had been part of the fl ight crew. He went on to say that that he and a colleague had been commissioned to report on the suitability of a disused bomber base, now known as Heathrow, as an airport for London. They concluded that Heathrow was suitable and stated that, while the two runways at that time (1945) were suffi cient, three would be needed in the future. This recommendation was disregarded, the land was sold for housing and the

fl ight path was directly over a new housing area! Why bother with a professional opinion? It would be interesting to known who made the decision and why, to end up with the problems of today’s Heathrow. Let us learn from the stupidity of the past. We do not need to decide Heathrow or Gatwick. We will need both in the very near future. They should be combined to retain the best aspects of both. This should be done cautiously, so that the inevitable

snags can be sorted out without incurring expensive mistakes. Consideration should also be given to the feeder routes and rail links. A lot could also be learned from visits to other international airports which might reveal helpful ideas. The industry and the not the Government should be allowed to guide this very important undertaking for the sake of the future of British Aviation transportation.

Dr W Alexander Beck

Third Heathrow runway obvious in 1945

Heathrow Airport central area under construction in 1955.

heading for melt-down (due to having insuffi cient personnel to re-generate the front line). Clearly the time is approaching where actions will count more than mere words.

Richard Gardner MRAeS

On future aerospace engineers I enjoyed the editorial piece ‘On the shoulders of giants’ in the October edition of AEROSPACE(1).

At the Jet Age Museum in Gloucestershire (www.jetagemuseum.org), we have recently developed a Science Technology Engineering and Maths outreach activity aimed at Key Stage 3 (11 to 14 year old) school students. I attach a slide from the presentation which we use to inspire the

students when kicking off the activity. This slide was put together earlier this year, and it is

encouraging that you and the Museum see the same point, and in most cases independently picked

the same great aircraft designers! We included George Carter (Gloster Aircraft Company) alongside engine pioneer Frank Whittle to give the students awareness of great designers working here in Gloucestershire, on their doorstep! Many thanks for an interesting piece – and I was interested to hear about Boeing’s planned culture change to bring back ‘applied gut feel’ in design!

Brian Rawnsley

fAmanda Wickwar [On recruiting female pilots(2)] The male/female thing is overplayed, but, speaking as a woman engineer, there is a dire need to reduce gender stereotyping. This can only be done by promoting STEM topics and educating children from a very young age (and their parents!)

i f@aerosociety linkedin.com/raes facebook.com/raes www.aerosociety.com 13DECEMBER 2016

OnlineAdditional features and content are available to view online at http://media.aerosociety.com/aerospace-insight

1. AEROSPACE, October, 2016, p 32. http://www.aerosociety.com/News/Insight-Blog/4897/Redressing-the-balance

@aerosociety Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook. www.aerosociety.comi f

The fi rst all female fl ight crew for Royal Brunei Airlines – Cpt Sharifah Czarena, SFO DK Nadiah and SFO Sariana.

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that there is nothing wrong in a woman choosing to be a pilot, engineer, panel beater etc. anymore than there is anything wrong in a man deciding to become a chef, fashion designer, or hairdresser. It is time everyone woke up to the fact that we are all individuals and the days of forcing people into a particular career because of their gender, while ignoring where that person’s true passion or abilities lay, is not good for society now or in the future.

Richard Fitzpatrick The world doesn’t ‘need’ more female anything, or more male anything. As long as those hired and employed are the most competent, the demographic group that they come from is entirely irrelevant.

@JamesBosbotinis [On Donald Trump’s effect on aviation, defence and spacefl ight] Very useful piece by @RAeSTimR, @AeroSociety, looking at the implications of Trump’s election on aerospace, defence and space.

@samalexnicholas Surely defence spending in NATO countries will now signifi cantly rise as Trump’s views on NATO now put the alliance in doubt

@henrycobb Calling for an end to waste fraud and abuse in the @PentagonBudget bodes ill for @thef35?

@Light_Flight22 The @AeroSociety @RAeSCareers Careers in Aerospace Live well underway. Great turnout and lots of interest!

@EngCouncil #CIAALiVE brings together industry & educational partnerships:

@CobhamCareers Had a fantastic day talking to everyone about exciting opportunities at @Cobham_plc!

@Redaye94 Looking forward to the afternoon session of #CIALIVE2016 on my way now.

@Abiwitts Final presentation done and dusted, busy day here at #CIALIVE2016

@designerjet [On Redressing the balance(2)] It’s a wonderful article It really presents a full-story on the complications of recruiting—for both genders. Loved it.

@thejollyboatman Maybe because our industry thinks fatigue, burnout and job insecurity are acceptable and women are too smart to put up with it?

@stufftamzinsays Actually looking at an applicant’s CV and not just binning it when they see <500 hours and no current type rating would be a start!

@TWPILOT1 The continued deterioration in working conditions within the industry should be a bigger concern. #racetothebottom

@Tim_the_Pilot This is market forces at play. Risks & cost verses reward and lifestyle. Airlines are competing against other career options. Simple.

Can the balance be redressed with more female pilots?

@BobDmorcom [On Eric Winkle Brown’s medals and logbooks being up for auction] it should go to a museum rather than a private collection

@FlyNavyTrust Can’t believe this! He told me he was leaving them to FAA Museum along with his log-books!!

@byantium Should be purchased by nation for Imperial War Museum.

@redvanman12 [On Bob Hoover passing away] Another great aviator passes away.

@Aerosociety: Congratulations to the Buccaneers, @ShepherdNews and @AviationWeek who made the top three in tonight’s #AeroQuiz #avgeek

Richard Gearing presents the fi rst prize in the 2016 RAeS Aviation ‘Pub Quiz’ to Tony Osborne from the Aviation Week team.

US air show pilot Bob Hoover died in October at the age of 84.

RAeS Careers in Aerospace LIVE 2016

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Technologies for improving rotorcraft engine power, boost performanceand increase efficiency are now underway on both sides of the Atlantic, asROB COPPINGER discovers.

On the US side of the Atlantic the 3,000shp engine work aims to deliver an engine that will replace the different versions of the GE T700 turboshaft that powers the Boeing AH-64 Apache and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. The T700 versions are the 401C, 701C and 701D. The latest version, the 701D, has a diameter of 39.6cm and is 117cm long. It has a mass of 207kg and produces 1,279kW of energy with a specifi c fuel consumption of 0.462lb per horse power hour. The 701D, which was retrofi tted across fl eets in the early 2000s, can provide 2,000shp for a couple of minutes but normally provides 1,279shp continuously.

The US Army’s goal is to develop a replacement engine with 50% more power and 25% more fuel effi ciency, compared to the T700, and 20% more operational life. The engine must be able to operate at 1,800m (6,000ft) and in a climate of 95°F. The engine also has to fi t similar dimensions

14 AEROSPACE / DECEMBER 2016

AEROSPACENew aircraft

Helicopter engine development on either side of the Atlantic Ocean is following very different paths, including piston engines, two spools, kerosene and a variable speed capability, to achieve

broadly the same goals, improved fuel effi ciency, reduced emissions, more power and greater reliability.

The engines to be developed also have target power outputs that vary widely. The expected shaft horse powers (shp) range from the few hundreds up to 3,000. Italian fi rm Egimotors and Airbus Helicopters and the European Union’s Clean Sky programme have shp goals below 1,000. Safran Helicopter Engines, which includes what was Turbomeca, General Electric (GE) Aviation and the Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney joint venture, Advanced Turbine Engine Company (ATEC), have a target of 3,000shp.

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The UH-60 Black Hawk family of helicopters will use the successful engine chosen from the US Government’s Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITP).

An artist’s representation of the proposed Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney (ATEC) HPW3000 ITEP engine.

ATEC

15i f DECEMBER 2016@aerosociety Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

project, in collaboration with NASA. A variable speed power turbine is expected

to further improve fuel consumption and engine durability because the turbine can operate across a wider range, 55-105% of maximum speed and power, instead of a turboshaft’s usual 95-105% range. AVSPOT’s goal was a laboratory demonstration of AVSPOT technology in 2016.

ATEC President, Craig Madden, told AEROSPACE: “Because of the competitive

nature I can’t talk numbers but I’ll tell you that it was a very successfully completed program and our rig testing was deemed to be a successful rig test and met the program’s goals.” He added that AVSPOT

testing has been completed and the fi nal report has been written and submitted to the

US Army. ATEC’s competitor for the T700 replacement

engine is GE Aviation. Its demonstrator engine is the GE3000. The company was not available for comment but it has said that its GE3000, which is single spool, will use ceramic matrix composites, additive manufacturing and was designed with the latest in three-dimensional aerodynamics. Like the HPW3000, the GE3000 promises 25% better fuel economy, 20% longer life but also 65% more power to weight, compared to the T700.

The GE3000 was partly developed through the US Army’s Future Affordable Turbine Engine (FATE) programme. GE was also involved in the AATE and AVSPOT programmes. In related helicopter engine research, the US Army selected GE to perform conceptual design and trade analysis on the two-year Rotorcraft Advanced Engine Integrated Controls System programme.

TECH 3000

In Europe, Safran Helicopter Engines has a 3,000shp engine project called TECH 3000. Bench runs of a complete TECH 3000 demonstrator engine will take place next year. Safran’s objective for the programme is to validate technologies enabling a signifi cant reduction in specifi c fuel consumption and better power-to-weight ratio over existing engines. New technologies TECH 3000 is using to achieve these goals include, air cooled blades in the high-pressure turbine and additive manufacturing for the fuel nozzle and other components.

to the T701D because it will be retrofi tted to the Apache and Blackhawks. In August, the Army awarded contracts to GE Aviation and ATEC for the Improved Turbine Engine Programme (ITEP) which will lead to the T700 replacement.

The ATEC demonstrator engine is the Honeywell Pratt & Whitney (HPW) 3000. The HPW3000 was developed during the US Army’s Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine (AATE) programme, which preceded ITEP, and will also be used in the Army’s Alternate Concept Engine (ACE) programme by ATEC. The ACE programme is to develop an engine with up to 10,000shp for the aircraft that could replace the Apache and Black Hawk in the 2030s.

“The improved turbine engine, (ITEP) that is a follow-on of a (science and technology) programme that we have been executing since 2008 and are nearing the completion of, and the improved engine (ITEP) preliminary design review is the follow-on phase to that (AATE) demonstrator engine,” ATEC Vice President, Gerry Wheeler, told AEROSPACE.

Two spools

The HPW3000 design has two spools, which ATEC claims has a 3-4% specifi c fuel consumption advantage against single spool engines. In a turbine engine, the spool is the shaft that links the forward compressor with the rearward turbine. A two-spool engine has two shafts, with one inside the other and both rotating independently. They both still have a compressor in the forward portion and turbine in the aft portion of the shaft.

“We have chosen to pursue a two-spool architecture in our engine which means we have a high pressure and a low-pressure system. Fixed wing engines are almost all two spool, we haven’t done a single spool military fi xed wing engine in a long, long, long time. Current US military helicopter engines the ones that power Apache, Black Hawk and Chinook are all single spool,” said Wheeler.

For the engine’s control electronics, ATEC will be applying lessons learned from Pratt & Whitney’s work on the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor engine, the F119, and from the development of the Lockheed Martin F-35 F135 engine. The joint venture will also employ control technologies from Honeywell’s T55 engine that powers the Boeing CH-47 Chinook.

The HPW3000 demonstrator engine will also be fi tted with the variable-speed power turbine for the ACE programme. This variable speed power capability was developed in a science and technology programme whose contracts were awarded in 2012. The Advanced Variable Speed Power Turbine, or AVSPOT, programme was a US Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate

THE US ARMY’S GOAL IS TO DEVELOP A REPLACEMENT ENGINE WITH 50% MORE POWER AND 25% MORE FUEL EFFICIENCY, COMPARED TO THE T700

Craig Madden (President, ATEC

)

An artist’s representation of GE Aviation’s GE3000 ITEP engine.

An artist’s representation of Safran’s TECH 3000 demonstrator engine.

GE Aviation


Safran has declined to give specifi c performance goals, unlike the US programmes. Safran told AEROSPACE: “We are not able to disclose specifi c fi gures at the time, but we

are aiming at a specifi c fuel consumption reduction in

percentages close to a double-digit fi gure.” The fi rst TECH 3000 engine ‘modules’, as Safran calls them, which include an axial compressor, combustion chamber and high-pressure

turbine, have been ground tested and Safran

confi rmed that some of that ground testing was done in 2015.

Safran said: “Regarding the compressor, we have tested some stages

since 2015. Axial stages fi rst, then the centrifugal stages. Full compressor tests will be soon. We have started combustion chamber and high-pressure turbines ground test this year. Low pressure turbine tests will start by the end of the year.” All the TECH 3000 ground tests are conducted at the fi rm’s plant in Bordes, southwestern France, near the Pyrenees mountains.

The starting point for the TECH 3000 was the work carried out by Turbomeca on the RMT322 engine, a joint venture with Rolls-Royce. Turbomeca would buy out Rolls from that programme and started TECH 3000 development

in 2013. Safran said: “The programme acquisition enables us to innovate and

develop independently new projects in the more

powerful 2,500-3,000shp engine segment. However, TECH 3000 is not an RTM322 derivative.”

HIPE-hip hooray

Another European effort is the EU’s HIPE

AE 440 Diesel Powerpack for a Light Helicopter

Demonstrator project which involves a racing car engine manufacturer building an engine for an Airbus Helicopters H120 test aircraft. “We have fl own, so far, until the end of July (2016),” Airbus Helicopters’ H120 High Compression Engine Project Manager, Alexandre Gierczynski, told AEROSPACE. The Airbus Helicopters H120

AEROSPACERotorcraft propulsion

test aircraft fi rst fl ew with the HIgh compression Piston Engine (HIPE) on 6 November last year at Marseille Provence Airport in Marignane, northwest of Marseille, France.

The HIPE project is part of Clean Sky’s Green Rotorcraft Integrated Technology Demonstrator. The expectation is that the use of this kind of engine on a light helicopter can reduce fuel consumption by up to 50% and nearly double the range. The engine is called high compression because the compression ratio inside the piston engine’s combustion chamber is much higher than in the turboshaft engine.

“In 2009, we started pre-studies internally and the project within Clean Skies started in June

The Boeing Apache AH-64’s General Electric (GE) T700 turboshaft engines will be replaced by engines that result from the US Government’s ITP.

Boeing

2011 and we had the fi rst engine running on the bench in March 2013,” explained Gierczynski. The HIPE is a 440shp demonstrator. The test fl ights demonstrated an actual specifi c fuel consumption that was far better than predicted, according to Gierczynski. “I can confi rm we have measured during the fl ight tests a reduction in fuel consumption (in kilograms) of 42%, compared to the existing H120 turboshaft. We made our calculations in terms of helicopter performance with a fuel consumption reduction of 30% and we achieved 42%.”

The HIPE is a 4.6 litre liquid-cooled, eight-cylinder, four-stroke piston engine and is fuelled with kerosene. The core aluminium engine was designed by the French company, Teos Powertrain Engineering, which specialises in racing car

Safran


engines. Its partner in Austria, Austro Engine, focused on components like the full authority digital engine control and its airworthiness.

The HIPE has its piston cylinders oriented at a 90° angle to each other because this helps for vibration. “Basically, it is an architecture which enables us to have the lowest vibration and dynamic behaviour of the engine. I would say that this is a must for us, to avoid additional mass to damp vibration to limit dynamic phenomena,” explained Gierczynski.

The liquid cooling, as opposed to most piston engine’s air cooling, was a key part of the fl ight testing. Gierczynski said: “We were able to validate fl ights up to an ambient temperature of 35°C which was a pre-requisite to validate the cooling system of the engine. Yes, the cooling system worked.”

Gierczynski explained that an advantage a piston engine has against a turboshaft engine is that, when the turboshaft’s load is reduced, its effi ciency goes down but not with a piston engine. “The gain on fuel consumption is even higher at part load than at take-off power and during a fl ight we use take-off power only for a small percentage of the time during the whole fl ight. The thermodynamic cycle is more effi cient. Combustion is much more effi cient than on a small turboshaft.” This effi ciency delivers that 0.8kg per kilowatt power-to-weight ratio that had to be achieved because the aluminium engine is heavier than a turboshaft engine with the same output.

The HIPE has an installed weight of about 250kg, while an equivalent turboshaft would only weigh about 130kg. However, the HIPE can use far less fuel for the same fl ight, says Gierczynski, and the piston engine can retain its performance to an altitude of 8,200ft, which he claims a turboshaft cannot.

Another advantage of the high compression is that combustion is self-igniting. The pressure within the combustor ensures the fuel and air ignite. The engine also uses turbochargers, one for each bank of pistons. Gierczynski estimates that, with the turbocharger, the engine could deliver the necessary power at altitudes up to almost 20,000ft.

Clean Sky also has emission reduction targets but Gierczynski said that turboshaft makers are not required to declare their emissions, so comparisons are diffi cult. However, simulations by Clean Sky, ‘technology evaluators,’ Gierczynski explained, found a HIPE reduction of 76% in nitrogen oxide emissions compared to a turboshaft.

Gierczynski is also keen to point out that: “the helicopter demonstrator was to validate the installation of a piston engine with kerosene as a viable helicopter product.” He admits that Airbus is interested in moving forward with the engine but declines to say how.

Aiming higher

A European company that is happy to talk about what it wants to do next is Italian fi rm Egimotors, which is based just outside Milan. It received €50,000 from the European Commission for its High performance Engine for Light Sport Aircraft (HIGHER) project to produce a piston engine for a light aircraft or helicopter. Called the EGM 4x4, the engine is 4,000cm² with a 112mm piston diameter.

Egimotors began work on the EGM 4x4 two years ago and its manager, Carlo Curci, told AEROSPACE: “We are waiting for the next funding phase (round) to see if we get Phase 2 (funding). I can continue if I get the (EC) money.” According to the EC project description, Egimotors’ business plan

is to sell in fi ve years more than 500 engines at a target price of €16,000 each.

The HIGHER project aims included a maximum engine mass of 115kg, 20% lower than equivalent engines today, an output of 200hp with four valves-per-cylinder, a lower purchase and operating cost, due to the use of automotive Mogas, higher reliability and safety, and a reduced environmental impact.

Curci explained that: “We develop it to use with 95% Mogas and we are still working on it to test it but the problem is now we spent the money to make the fi rst mould, to make fi rst prototypes and make some testing. We are trying to (get) the Phase 2 (funding) because with Phase 1, of course, you get €50k, but with €50k we only made some tests about the power supply and some tests on this engine about reliability, but only this.”

Time and money are common constraints across all of the above programmes. Whether it is 2008 or 2009 or 2013 when a project manager can trace back the origins of the ongoing programme, the story of engine development is long and expensive.

Airbus Helicopters has begun fl ight tests with high-compression engines for cleaner, more effi cient and higher-performance rotorcraft.

Airbus H

elicopters

A team of engineeringstudents at the University ofSouthampton is testing anew wingsuit design withwhich they hope to breakall existing world recordsfor height, speed anddistance with a jump fromover 45,000ft. BILL READ,FRAeS reports.


customised wingsuit to set new records for fl ying from the highest altitude (45,000ft), at the highest speed and travelling the furthest total distance.

Supported by the University of Southampton, together with a number of partners, the Icarus wingsuit project is part of a fourth year MEng Group Design Project and third year individual project for Aeronautics and Astronautics students. Taking part this year are ten students from the Aeronautics and Astronautics degree programme who are studying a range of subjects from aerodynamics to air vehicle systems. The goals of the project are to:

● Inspire school and university students to consider careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)

● Provide a unique applied learning experience for students as part of a dedicated team, representing the university at an international level

● Make signifi cant scientifi c advances in aerodynamics and testing by students while pushing the boundaries of wingsuits technologies

● Engage in public outreach and showcase the university research outputs on technical, sensational yet relatable subject

Flying doctor

The Icarus wingsuit is going to be fl own by the project coordinator, Dr Angelo Niko Grubišic, lecturer in Astronautics and Advanced Propulsion within the University’s Aeronautics Astronautics and Computational Engineering Unit. Dr Grubisic is also a specialist in the development and testing of

Falling

stylewith

It has always been a human dream to be able to fl y like a bird. With the development of the wingsuit, this dream has come closer to reality. Unlike hang-gliders or ultralights which still need the pilot to sit inside an aircraft, a wingsuit (as

its name implies) is clothing you can fl y. As well as covering the wearer’s body, a wingsuit has extra fabric under the arms for wings and between the legs for the tail to turn a human into a blended wing aircraft. The wearer controls the fl ight performance of the suit through their physical movements. Similar to a glider, a wingsuit is not capable of sustained fl ight and can only descend in a controlled manner before the pilot deploys a parachute.

Wingsuits

First developed in the 1990s as a means to extend the freefall time of skydivers, wingsuits have already set a number of impressive records. The current world record for fl ight duration was set by Colombian skydiver Jhonathan Florez in 2012 with a time of nine minutes and six seconds. Florez also holds the record for the highest altitude wingsuit jump of 11,358m (37,265ft). The record for highest speed achieved was set by Japanese wingsuit pilot Shin Ito with a speed of 363km/h (226mph) while the distance record is 18.26 miles which was set by Andy Stumpf in 2015.

However, all these records may be consigned to the history books if the University of Southampton’s Icarus Project achieves its aim – which is to develop the world’s fi rst scientifi cally engineered wingsuit to set new world records for human fl ight. Named the Icarus Project, the University intends to use the

ANGELO WILL NOT ONLY DESCEND 45,000FT BUT ALSO TRAVEL 20-25 MILES AT SPEEDS OF UP TO 280MPH

GENERAL AVIATIONWingsuit aerodynamics

19i f DECEMBER 2016

Above: Testing the Icarus wingsuit over the Algarve.


All images provided by the University of Southampton.

advanced propulsion systems for spacecraft, as well as additive manufacturing. Angelo previously worked as a consultant AIT and Systems Engineer for QinetiQ where he was responsible for the development of the T6 Solar Electric Propulsion System on the £1.1bn+ ESA BepiColombo mission to Mercury. In addition to his scientifi c achievements, Dr Grubišic is also an experienced wingsuit base jumper. He was also a candidate in the European Astronaut Selection Programme to become the UK’s fi rst astronaut but was beaten by Tim Peake.

Wingsuit challenges

Designing a wingsuit has posed technical and physiological challenges, as the jump will be diffi cult and dangerous. The descent is expected to last

around 15min, during which time Angelo will not only descend 45,000ft but also travel 20-25 miles at speeds of up to 280mph. The fi rst challenge is that the suit and its wearer will encounter very low atmospheric pressures (140mbar) which is only 14% of that experienced at ground level and well into pressure suit territory. There is also the risk of embolisms from water starting to vaporise at low pressure, causing, swelling and bruising with the added risk of decompression sickness and hypoxia. To counter this, Angelo will have to use positive pressure HALO (high altitude low opening) oxygen equipment. Secondly, there is the problem of temperature. The background temperature will be around –55°C but this will be further reduced to approximately –110°C by wind-chill at such high speeds. In addition to this, the suit will also have to be able to cope with fl ight

Icarus project

Icarus project

Left: Wind-tunnel performance testing in the R J Mitchell Wind Tunnel.


speeds in excess of 280mph. As well as coping with these factors, the wingsuit design also has to fi t and allow the wearer to fl y faster and further than any previous designs.

CFD tests

Before creating the wingsuit, the team studied the aerodynamics and fl ight mechanics that it will have to deal with. “Wingsuits operate quite differently to aircraft,” explains Angelo. “Part of the problem in designing wingsuits is that they’re almost impossible to physically model in computer programs due to their complex shape, which means any computer fl uid dynamics (CFD) simulations do not provide an accurate insight. Our solution was to utilise the latest metrology techniques and 3D laser scan current suits to create a computer model and a starting point for the design process. However, to do this, you need a suit in a fl ight like shape to scan it, so I set my third year Aeronautics and Astronautics student Jennifer Crunden the challenge of developing a special chest rig to support me in our R J Mitchell Wind Tunnel. The high-speed airfl ow from the tunnel allows the suit to infl ate, using its ram air intakes and sit in a fl ight-like shape for the scan. The process was a world fi rst for wingsuits, as no one has accurate computer models like these.”

Wind-tunnel tests

The initial wingsuit design was tested in the RJ Mitchell wind-tunnel using the experimental test rig. The pilot is secured into a six-axis force sensor to measure the lift, drag forces and moment of the wingsuit at various airspeeds. The team also developed a free fl ight experimental test rig, which

allowed the pilot to fl y freely inside the horizontal wind tunnel via a single tether which can replicate more closely the fl ight performance of the suit.

The next task was to increase the wingsuit’s lift-to-drag ratio so that it would fl y further. Wingsuits fl y using the same characteristics as wings by generating a pressure difference between the front and back of the suit which acts over the suit to create lift. “What our team was trying to achieve is to increase the lift-to-drag ratio which is the same quantity as the glide ratio,” says Angelo. “Even preliminary fl uid models showed us that, by introducing special winglets and an aerodynamic helmet to the pilot, you can make dramatic improvements and we’re just getting started.” The Icarus team has also developed a system of real-time feedback of glide ratio displayed to the pilot from an overhead projector to the fl oor of the wind tunnel. Body positions can be tweaked by the pilot and optimised to fi nd the maximum glide point – a technique which was used to help Amy Williams achieve a gold medal in the 2010 Olympics, as well as other Olympic cyclists.

Climatic tests

To replicate both the cold temperatures and high fl ight speeds that the pilot will experience, additional climatic tests are planned to be carried out in the University of Ontario Climatic wind tunnel. This tunnel can simulate air speeds of over 250km/h at temperatures of –40°C and can test whether the wingsuit and supporting thermal gear is capable of preventing hypothermia or frostbite for the duration of the fl ight through the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere without the benefi t of a pressure suit. These tests will be performed with the free fl ight test rig, allowing real fl ight for the duration of the tests. The climatic tests are planned for next year.

In addition to these tests, Dr Grubišic is to undergo a series of training exercises in a hypobaric chamber to learn how to cope with low levels of pressure and oxygen. This part of the project will also look at the effects of oxygen deprivation on human physiology and the ability of the pilot to cope under such conditions.

GENERAL AVIATIONWingsuit aerodynamics

Simulation of wingsuit aerodynamics.

Dr Angelo Niko Grubišic in freefall.

Duc

krab

bit

Icarus project

ICARUS PROJECT LINKS

Icarus Project Website – https://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/icarus/

Icarus Project Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/IcarusWingSuitProject/

Airkix STEM workshop – Airkix UK http://www.airkix.com/book-fl ights/schools/icarus-fl ight-school.aspx

Born to Engineer fi lm – https://www.duckrabbit.info/portfolio/born-to-engineer/

Dr Angelo Niko Grubišic – [email protected]

Dr Angelo Niko Grubišic, Icarus project coordinator.


Athena helmet

In conjunction with project partner Boardyard, the Icarus team also tested a special ‘Athena’ aerodynamic helmet which Angelo will wear during the fl ight and which was fl own in the skies over the Algarve in Portugal. “No one has really tried this kind of aerodynamic helmet before,” explained Angelo. “It is surprisingly quiet, has a better visual fi eld than any previous helmet I’ve tried and looking up at a canopy is easy. We adopted a long tail design, which extends backwards to mitigate the low-pressure region at the back of the head, which is a big source of drag. We’ve also had to make sure that the tail does not interfere with the opening of the main parachute, the reserve canopy or any emergency procedures or piloting of the canopy.” The helmet is also fi tted with a head-up display developed with US partner FlySight which includes a telemetry and navigation system to help track airspeed and glide ratio throughout the fl ight. Athena is also fi tted with a quick release cutaway for emergencies.

Outreach

As part of its outreach objective the Icarus project has also been promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) among schools and universities. The project has been featured on the BBC One Show with over 5m viewers. It has also been commissioned for a short fi lm production called Born to Engineer to provide examples of how science and engineering can lead to interesting and fulfi lling careers. The project has also developed partnerships with external companies and organisations, including laser scanning specialists OR3D which used the project as a case study for its applications. In addition, the project has also had offers in kind or sponsorship of equipment from companies such as Flysight GPS systems, Cypress parachute

safety systems and Performance Designs canopy systems. Relationships have also been formed with academics in medical sciences and formed a collaboration in wind-tunnel research with the University of Ontario. The project has also developed a Physics of Flight Workshop held at IFly vertical wind tunnels, where schoolchildren receive an exciting wingsuit physics less followed by a real skydiving fl ight experience an indoor skydiving wind tunnel. the Icarus Project held six Physics of Flight Workshops, as well as appearing at the Cheltenham Science Festival, Southampton Science and Engineering Festival, Southampton Design Show and the 2016 Farnborough Air Show.

Getting ready to jump

The fi rst stage of the project ran from October 2015 to October 2016. The fi rst four months up to February were taken up with design and manufacturing, followed by initial wind-tunnel testing in March. When originally devised, the plan was for a series of test-fl ights from increasing heights during 2016 to culminate in October with the record-breaking jump from over 40,000ft. However, this schedule has had to be postponed while additional sponsors are sought. “At the moment we’re working on manufacturing the second prototype of the suit,” explained Dr Grubišic. “Once we have fi nalised the design, we will build at least two. After all, if you have the best wingsuit in the world, how are you supposed to fl y with anyone else if no other wingsuit can keep up?”

Once the wing-suit has been completed, the plan is to perform wind tunnel validation tests and then progress to test fl ights. These will be initially at the Netheravon Drop Zone in Salisbury from 22,000ft and will then progress higher from there. These jumps are designed to test the safety procedures, stability and performance of the new fl ight suit. Following these initial tests, there will be HALO (high altitude low opening) jumps from 35,000ft to test the wingsuit, navigation, telemetry and the pilot, including pre-breathing oxygen for a few hours to allow dissolved nitrogen to escape from his bloodstream prior to fl ight and the storage of bottled oxygen in the wingsuit. These jumps also record medical data, such as O2 blood concentration, heart rate and core/extremity temperature.

“We are currently looking for an ambitious sponsor to help us see this great project through to its conclusion,” said Dr Grubisic. “One of the things we need is the use of a C-17 or similar aircraft capable of dropping us from 45,000ft.”

So, if any companies, manufacturers or air forces are reading this who would like to help sponsor this record-breaking project to achieve its aims, you know who to talk to …

...Getting ready to jump.

The data for the CFD models was created from 3D CAD scans of windsuits tested in the RJ Mitchell wind-tunnel at the University.

Icarus project3 m

en & a suit

The RAeS Cranfi eld Branch will be holding a public lecture on the Icarus wing-suit project on 10 May 2017.

AEROSPACENew aircraftAEROSPACEPredictions from 1966

I n 50 years, vertical take-off and landing will

have become a standard operating system,

passenger fl ight at Mach 4 will be routine and

interplanetary travel will be established,”(1)

predicted A D Baxter – who became RAeS President for 1966-67. Back in 1966 when the Royal Aeronautical Society celebrated its centenary year, leading experts of the day were invited to predict how they thought aviation and the aerospace industry would develop over the next 50 years up to 2016 and even up to 2066. Some of their conclusions were summarised in an article in the RAeS Centenary Garden Party brochure while a special Centenary Symposium devoted to future predictions (The Skyward Urge – Aviation 1866-

2016) was held at 4 Hamilton Place on 15-16 July 1966 organised by the RAeS Graduates and Students Section. At the suggestion of Prof John Allen (designer of the Hawk and now the RAeS’s most senior member), the Society also invited a number of engineers, researchers and scientists to give their views on the progress that might be

foreseen for aerospace in the next 100 years, to be included in a special book, The Future of Aeronautics, which was published in 1970.

Looking through the pages of these publications gives a fascinating insight into how the experts of 1966 thought aviation might evolve in the future compared to the reality of what actually happened. While some of their predictions failed to come true, others were remarkably accurate.

Aircraft expansion

Looking at the future of air transport, many experts predicted its continued expansion. “There will be a tremendous increase in air travel,”(1) said Sir Frederick Page, who later became Chairman and CE of British Aerospace. “Aircraft size will increase will

go on increasing and fares will decrease to a point

where crossing an ocean for one’s holiday will be

commonplace,”(1) W N Neat accurately predicted: “[In 2016] air traffi c will be as much as 10 times as great

than at present.” – a statement that also proved to be

When the RAeS celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1966, leading aeronautical experts were invited to predict how they thought aviation and the aerospace industry might look in 2016. BILL READ FRAeS looks at what they predicted and how accurate they proved to be.

Visions of the future


Experts predicted that all air traffi c control functions in the future would be carried out by computer. Cartoon from the 1966 RAeS Garden Party brochure.

very close to what actually happened. An air traffi c growth chart from the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) shows that around 0.3bn passengers fl ew in 1966 while IATA Statistics for 2015 reported that there were 37.6m fl ights last year carrying over 3.5bn people – an increase of 11.67%

Others thought that the introduction of remote video conferencing would make air travel unnecessary. “World space TV channels now

make communications aircraft obsolete,”(1) wrote author G Wansborough White. “The development

of the video telephone, the possibility of conference

between individuals in offi ces scattered over the

world connected by such a device, must clearly make

a need to travel less,”(2) concurred RAeS 1947-9 President, Lord Kings Norton, Harold Roxbee Cox – who became the Director of the National Gas Turbine Establishment and wrote the report that formed the blueprint for the Cranfi eld College of Aeronautics.

Supersonic travel

In the decade when Concorde was being developed, many of the writers were convinced that supersonic transport would eventually become commonplace: “The widespread use of supersonic transport must be

a foregone conclusion,” stated W N Neat. “Speeds

will increase until it is possible to reach any part of

the world, carry out one’s business and return within

the day.”(1) “Supersonic airliners will be commonplace

and rocket transportation will be used for some

purposes,”(1) predicted Sir Frederick Page.

Nuclear aircraft

Another prediction was that aircraft of the future would be nuclear-powered. “I can see our great

grandchildren operating aircraft for civil purposes only,

carrying holiday traffi c and freight, operating them by

nuclear propulsion from the centres of cities, vertically,

noiselessly and effi ciently,”(1) wrote David Keith-Lucas (RAeS President 1968-69 who also worked as Chief Designer, Technical Director and Research Director at Shorts).

However, the experts were aware that there might also be drawbacks to using nuclear power aboard aircraft. “Nuclear aircraft do produce large

amounts of radioactive material,” admitted L G Dawson. “It is the safety aspect which presents the

major obstacle to their acceptance(2).”

City centre VTOL stations

A future trend that many writers agreed was the replacement of conventional airports with city centre ‘V-ports’ serviced by vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) regional transport aircraft. “Rotorcraft will

have several elevated stations in most city centres,” suggested Prof J A J Bennett. “Runways will be

abolished and aeroplanes will have acquired the

capability and ease of the helicopter to operate in and

out of confi rmed areas. Rotorcraft will replace the fast

automobile and the rotorbus will be a regular means of

transport between cities.”(1) Pioneer British helicopter engineer R Hafner

speaking at the 1966 RAeS Symposium issued a word of caution: “I expect the rotorcraft, operating

mainly from V-ports in cities, to play a dominant role in

short- and medium-haul air transport,” he said but also accurately predicted why the VTOL concept might fail to take-off. “There has also been an unfavourable

public reaction to the increased hazard in the street

that has arisen from the operation of helicopters into

the centre of Manhattan (Pan-Am building). These

signs portend diffi culties to the introduction of a VTOL

transport system operating around the clock from the

very heart of cities.”(2)

However, older aircraft designs would not be neglected. “Our great grandchildren … will spend

their weekends fl ying gliders and Tiger Moths,”(1) wrote David Keith-Lucas. A H Wheeler even put forward the radical suggestion that some aircraft of the future might not need pilots: “An impending major technical

breakthrough in agricultural aviation will be a form

of ‘Robot’ fl ying machine which will supercede the

existing generation of agricultural aircraft.”(2) Fifty years later, UAVs are being used to replace agricutural aircraft – and for a few other applications as well.

To Mars by 1980?

Turning to the future of space travel, experts were able to accurate predict a number of future trends but were over optimistic about the timescale. With the rapid progress of the Apollo missions towards its goal of landing a man on the Moon, speakers at the Symposium were convinced that manned missions to other planets would follow. “It is likely that men will

reach Mars by the 1980s,”(2) said A V Cleaver. Another speaker, Ronald Smelt, anticipated the

rise of space tourism, although again his timescale

How the aerospace world of today might have been (from top left clockwise): A VTOL airport in the Year 2000 as envisioned by Hawker Siddeley Aviation and Brian Colquhoun and Partners, A future rocket taking off, a space station in orbit around the Earth, a model of the 1960 AWP13 medium-range M-wing airliner in the ARA transonic wind-tunnel and the BAC ‘Mustard’ project which proposed a recoverable space launching vehicle comprised of three stages – two outer boosters which would detach and return to base and a third which would continue into orbit. (All images from RAeS/NAL)

Full scale mockup of the proposed Boeing 2707 SST large supersonic airliner. When the experts of 1966 were making their predictions, supersonic travel was expected to become commonplace.

SPEEDS WILL INCREASE UNTIL IT IS POSSIBLE TO REACH ANY PART OF THE WORLD, CARRY OUT ONE’S BUSINESS AND RETURN WITHIN THE DAY.Sir Frederick Page, 1966

i f DECEMBER 2016@aerosociety Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com 23

RAeS 150

The future of defence

Turning his attention to the future of defence, Prof Legg was of the opinion that the military role of the UK would be replaced by a joint European defence force and that most important weapon of the future would be the missile. “Britain is likely to become part

of a United States of Europe whose total defence

would therefore be handled on a group basis …

In 2016 the (British military) services will be much

more, if not fully, integrated. Weapon development

will be largely missiles launched from underwater

bases either from underwater vehicles or underwater

defence cities.”(3)

Manufacturing and systems

However, when it came to looking at future trends in aircraft manufacturing and systems, the RAeS experts made a number of accurate predictions. What is even more remarkable is that some of the most (then) unlikely ideas they suggested are now becoming reality. Several experts highlighted the potential offered by the development of new materials, in particular composites. ‘Father of Concorde’ Morien Morgan, RAeS President 1967-68 and Chairman of the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee, wrote that: “Outstandingly

important elements in giving impulse to this changing

scene will be materials – the composites in particular

need watching and micro-miniaturisation.”(1) A J Kennedy went further: “We should not the

potentialities of new fabric forms of materials, for

example, those woven from high temperature wires or

from graphite.”(2)

Lord Kings Norton even came close to predicting both the introduction of pre-formed

was over optimistic. “Flight into space will become more commonplace,” he said. “Before the end of the

century, it appears likely that space excursions for

thrill of pleasure will begin.”(2) However, Freddie Page was accurate in predicting both the future of space exploration and the development of new launch systems. “There will be a great increase in the amount

of scientifi c work carried out beyond the atmosphere

and man will be exploiting the neighbouring parts of

the solar system and exploring the more remote parts.

All of this will demand more effi cient space launching

and transport systems.”(1) The 1966 experts also foresaw the future

importance of orbiting satellites. A V Cleaver predicted that: “Space stations will also provide the major means

of long-distance telecommunications, control and

navigation of most terrestrial transport vehicles.”(1) – a vision that has since become reality with GPS and other satellite-based navigational systems.

Computerised air traffi c control

The luminaries of 1966 also surmised about the infrastructure that the airliners of the 21st century would have to operate in. “In 100 years, all air traffi c

control will be directed by a central World Computer

Unit which will compute at any instant the optimum

pattern for safety and economy by world airlines

as a whole and will monitor all routes by en route

instructions to pilots,” suggested Prof Roderick Collar – RAeS President in 1963-64 and a leading academic in aeroelasticity at NPL and later at Bristol University. “Thus, in the integrated pattern, an engine

failure over the Atlantic might result in an instruction

to a pilot crossing the Tasman sea to change speed.

But I don’t know if the pilots will be fl ying the aircraft or

operating the computer!”(1)

Fifty years ago, it was thought that humans would land on Mars by the 1980s. NASA is still hoping to send a manned mission to Mars but not

until the 2030s.

BRITAIN IS LIKELY TO BECOME PART OF A UNITED STATES OF EUROPE WHOSE TOTAL DEFENCE WOULD THEREFORE BE HANDLED ON A GROUP BASIS

Prof Legg, 1966

NA

SA


AEROSPACERAeS Predictions from 1966

RAeS 150

composite structures and 3D printing. “I have long

been shocked by the production of high performance

structural parts by machining away most of the

material supplied. The correct evaluation of alternative

processes and the development of potentially

economic forming processes, is obviously a matter of

great importance in the future.”(2)

Airborne computers

The experts also anticipated the development of new computer and control systems into aircraft to aid pilots. Peter Hearne, RAeS President 1980-81 who ended up as Chairman of GEC Avionics, wrote that: “Small size digital computers will also

be used in the control and organisation of such

systems as communications, cabin conditioning etc.

Most important they will certainly be used for engine

control.”(3)

Future systems

Other future systems which were hinted at were: Fly-by-wire – “With the advent of reliable multi-

channel electronic control systems it becomes

possible to consider the replacement of many of

the mechanical control links which have become

increasingly heavy, complex and demanding of

maintenance in modern aircraft.”(3) (Peter Hearne)

Head-up displays – “Perhaps in the Second

Century of the Royal Aeronautical Society, we will

see synthetic three-dimensional holographic displays,

projected and stablished in the line of forward

vision.”(2) (G Melvill Jones)

Glass cockpits – “The other developments

associated with computers will be the development

of electronic displays with much greater fl exibility or

scene-shifting capability than is possessed by existing

mechanical instruments.”(3) (Peter Hearne)

TCAS – “Associated with this rapid growth in

air traffi c will be the urgent necessity for the

development of a collision avoidance system and

this should become available in an engineered form

around 1985.”(2) (P A Hearne)

J T Stamper (RAeS President 1981-82) also predicted the rise of CAD and virtual engineering. “In

100 years’ time I believe that drawing paper will have

been superseded by the computer store as the basic

clay moulded in the design process… Developments

in holography will lead to the practical use of three-

dimensional imagery in the design process.”(2) In the event, it didn’t take as long as 100 years for digital engineering to become reality (see Digital Cabins and virtual twins, AEROSPACE, November 2015, p22).

L G Dawson spoke at the Symposium saying: “In years to come, conventional fuels will no doubt

be relatively expensive… The manufacture of liquid

hydrogen near the airfi eld using solar power could

well make it an economical necessity for future long-

range aircraft.”(2) A number of hydrogen-powered aircraft have since been developed, including Boeing’s Fuel Cell Demonstrator and Phantom Eye UAV.

Mind control

However, one of the most remarkable predictions was that future pilots might be able to fl y aircraft using mind control, a vision that is now becoming reality, “Work in this new radiation spectra should

also enable the development of new types of

communication links between human beings directly

or human beings and machines in an area which is

now being defi ned as extra-sensory of telepathy,” wrote Peter Hearne. “Work in this area should

begin at approximately in the year 2000 and simple

laboratory experiments demonstrating the ability of

humans to control computers by thought processes

should be achieved by 2020.”(2)

A central data-processing exchange?

In addition to looking at the future of aviation, the experts of ’66, also considered how developments in communication technology might affect the industry. While no-one quite predicted the development and nature of the Internet, a couple of writers came close. “Because of the new visual and

computer links we anticipate, physical separation

will be comparatively unimportant in the future,” said Joseph Black. “The university researcher will be at

no disadvantage since the multi-access computer

links, the information retrieval and knowledge links

will make him independent of his own university’s

resources.”(2) J V Connolly was also not far off the mark when he wrote: “Computers will be widely

available and adequate installations linked to central

data processing ‘exchanges’ will be in most people’s

homes or offi ces. Pure information will be available on

a vast range of factual matters and the use of a library

will be a rare event.”(3)

Conclusion

In conclusion, while it is tempting with hindsight to smile at those predictions that did not come true, could any expert now in 2016 do any better? In the words of Morien Morgan: “Prophecy forward over just

a decade is a perilous trade but to be asked to look

forward 100 years is almost cruel.”(1)

Sources1. 2066 and all that, RAeS Centenary Garden Party

brochure 19662. The Skyward Urge – Aviation 1866-2016

Centenary Symposium, 15-16 July 19663. The Future of Aeronautics, ALLEN, J E and BRUCE,

J, RAeS, 1970

The concept of windowless supersonic aircraft fi tted with virtual aircraft windows has now moved from theory to serious design proposal.

Electronic cockpit displays, as proposed in this concept art from Elliot Brothers have now become reality.

Fifty years on, mind control for aircraft is much closer to reality, including the research conducted by the EU ‘Brainfl ight’ project to control UAVs and aircraft.

Technical Universitty of M

unichE

lliotS

pike Aerospace

i f DECEMBER 2016@aerosociety Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com 25

Concept art from 1968 of the 80-seat Westland WE-02 passenger-carrying tilt-rotor.

CLINT EASTWOOD speaks about adapting the events of the 2009’s‘miracle on the Hudson’ for the big screen and his interest in the story.

of Tom and he’s from Oakland (California) so he’s always told me I have to be a great admirer of his because I’m from Oakland too, and I’ve seen Aaron (Eckhart) in fi lms and thought he was terrifi c. I feel very lucky.

AEROSPACE: What attracted you to Sully’s story?CE: This script sat on my desk for almost a week and my assistant kept insisting I read it and she said several times “Look at the one called Untitled Script about the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’”. Obviously when someone mentions something three or four times over the course of a week, you think, ‘There’s something in that script that really appeals to her.


AIR TRANSPORTSully – The movie

Making of a hero

In a UK exclusive interview for AEROSPACE, legendary actor, fi lm director and pilot Clint Eastwood talks about turning 2009’s ‘Miracle on the Hudson’, the US Airways’ A320 water landing in which all 155 people on board survived, into

a blockbuster aviation movie starring Tom Hanks as Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenburger. Eastwood talks heroism, near-death experiences and fate.

AEROSPACE: You’ve never worked with Tom Hanks until now on Sully?Clint Eastwood: I was very fortunate to have these guys. I’ve worked with Laura Linney before and I feel very fond of her but I’ve always been a great admirer

Warner B

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Tom Hanks (left) and Clint Eastwood on the set of the fi lm Sully.


been like if he hadn’t made those decisions and you get a feel of that in this nightmarish fashion.

AEROSPACE: The American culture is so quick to describe something as heroism but – as

Sully says – he did a good job. What’s your views on heroism vs professionalism?CE: I agree. It’s certainly different to when I grew up. When you thought of heroes you thought of somebody like Audie Murphy (most decorated American veteran of WW2) who had done something that was above and beyond the norm in a certain situation during war-time. But we have this politically-correct thing now where everybody has to win a prize; all the little boys in the class have to go home with a fi rst place trophy. The use of the word ‘hero’ is a little bit overdone. But I don’t think so in Sully’s case. He‘s someone who‘s done a little bit extra beyond what he could be expected of.

AEROSPACE: You’ve fl own helicopters for a lot of your life. Did that give you a better understanding of Sully’s achievements?

CE: I’ve fl own 35 – maybe 40 – years in helicopters. I still own one but I haven’t fl own it much lately because I’ve been doing fi lms about heroic people. But it had an infl uence on me. I like aviation. I’ve been fascinated by it since I was a kid. I didn’t follow through with it until I was an adult. But the hero thing

I better read this.’ So I read it and immediately thought ‘What the hell was I reading? Why wasn’t I reading this script instead of those other turkeys along the way?’ I just fell in love with it right away.

AEROSPACE: The real Miracle on the Hudson event received so much publicity, it’s no wonder that everyone feels like they know the story already?CE: I also thought I knew all about the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ because I follow the newspapers and TV very carefully when that event happened, and then, all of a sudden, it made sense. I started asking myself: What’s the confl ict there? This guy Sullenberger did a fantastic job on landing the plane, all 155 lived, where’s the confl ict there? And then I realized there was a lot to say, his periods of self-doubt inspired by the NTSB, and he had to prove his decisions and they came out to be the right decisions, so then it became very dramatic and that’s what I’m looking for. The drama. Sometimes you just have to look deeper than your fi rst thoughts which was: this was a wonderful event but who wants to see a whole movie about it? So then you have to live through it with him and feel emotions about the various characters and all the different attitudes and his family life and how it effects your self-reliance, so it became a very fascinating story. So all I had to do was add some dream sequences so that the viewer could see what it would have

AVIATION IS VERY EXACTING. YOU NEED TO BE AN EXACTING PERSON; SOMEBODY WHO REALLY KNOWS THE DETAIL AND LIVES BY THE RULES AND SULLY IS THAT KIND OF GUY

Spy

ropk

The wreck of US Airways fl ight 1549 being lifted out of the Hudson river.

Below: Promotional image from ‘Sully: Miracle on the Hudson’.

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througgh with it until I was an adult. But the hero thingg so that the viewer could see what it would have

Warner B

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28 AEROSPACE / NOVEMBER 2016

Sully – A ReviewIt’s easy to be critical of movies today. Script writers and directors add fear, doubt and uncertainty to entertain the viewers with an emotional roller coaster ride. Actors said and did things in ‘Apollo 13’ and ‘Sully’ that did not happen. Substance lies beyond the criticism, so you need to be tolerant of the Hollywood factor and enjoy the bigger picture.

The scenes where Sully imagined his plane crashing into the buildings were not illusionary fantasies. I wrote in my book how I also became self-doubting after QF32, consumed by thoughts and dreams of ‘what-ifs’ that ended in disaster.

The perspectives of Sully and his First Offi cer, Jeff Skiles, being on trial for everything they had accomplished in their careers and did on Flight 1549 were accurate. However, the reality in the cockpit was far more dramatic than the movie.

Tom Hanks did not capture the depth of Sully’s bravery, leadership and resilience. Many, if not most, pilots would have felt they were done with their responsibilities the moment the passengers were rescued. But Sully never relinquished command of USAirways 1549, not at the ferry terminal, not in the subsequent days of media frenzy, nor throughout the lengthy investigation. Sully is still the Captain of Flight 1549 even today.

Sully shows us a bett er way to investigate safety. Safety offi cials generally only research events where things go wrong. The answers uncover ignorance, inadequate training or lack of experience. Rarely do the positive infl uences emerge.

Sully captured the successes of Flight 1549. When we look into Sully’s career, we discover the ingredients for personal resilience. These skills did not just protect the passengers of Flight 1549; they saved the lives of every passenger who fl ew with Sully over his 42-year career. We should bott le the essence of Sully’s values and behaviours, and use it as an elixir for resilience and success.

Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks did a great job in Sully, a human testament to leadership, teamwork and resilience. However, the real Sully Sullenberger and Jeff Skiles are larger in life than their characters in the movie.

Captain Richard de Crespigny, FRAeS, PIC QF32

is another deal. The inclination of people who do things on behalf of others is probably as good a way to be a hero as anything. You always hear about Iwo Jima or someplace where you hear about someone who fell on an hand-grenade to save his friend or something like that and you often wonder if he did that on purpose or did he just trip accidentally!? And they go, ‘A very heroic thing to do!’ If there’s a hand-grenade, most people would go in ‘which’ direction and I’d be right there with them! I’d be pushing them out of the way! Let’s get out of here. But sometimes people will do something fabulous like that.

AEROSPACE: But as a fellow pilot, does that give you some better appreciation of Sully’s achievements?CE: Aviation is very exacting. In other words, if you go to fl y every day, you check everything out. It would be like if you got in your car in the morning and you checked the gasoline and you checked every wheel, changed the oil, checked under the hood. You go through tons of different checks. But when we get in our car, we just jump in. We don’t care if the wheel is half off – as long as we get there – by the skin of the teeth. And in aviation, you just don’t do that. You need to be an exacting person; somebody who really knows the detail and lives by the rules and Sully is that kind of guy. He lived by the rules and in making a decision about landing in the Hudson because he’d been through training but had never imagined himself doing that before, I don’t think. But all of a sudden you have to think and make a lot of things happen in very few seconds and that’s what the story is about.

AEROSPACE: You survived a plane crash when you were just 21 years old, when your plane crashed into the water. Did Sully’s experience bring back memories of that time?CE: I think it did. But I haven’t really thought that much about it. In recent years, when this project came up, I went back and thought about it a little

AIR TRANSPORTSully – The movie

Warner Bros

Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenburger in London, 2009.


bit but it was a little bit different because I wasn’t with a group of people. I was just a passenger in a lonely spot in a plane and I didn’t have to react off anybody else. I never knew what the pilot was doing; I was just guessing that he was going to do a water landing. If he’d bailed out, I’d be in bad trouble. Fortunately, he did the right thing and waited for me. That was an experience; it was different. But by the same token it gives you an idea of where you get to that moment where you feel: this is it. Some people live through this and some people don’t. And that’s all I thought about, and fortunately, when we got in the water and I felt much better.

AEROSPACE: As a director, your movies are usually straight down the line without a lot of visual fl ourish or embellishments. What was your thinking with this?CE: We had a lot of discussions about realism and philosophies and the only thing I added was to try to do the dream sequences. I added those because I was trying to fi gure a way that – if you take the movie as an hour and a half – I didn’t want the landing to be a few seconds in an hour and a half chat about

THIS GUY SULLENBERGER DID A FANTASTIC JOB ON LANDING THE PLANE, ALL 155 LIVED, WHERE’S THE CONFLICT THERE? AND THEN I REALISED THERE WAS A LOT TO SAY

it – so the dream sequence is a ‘what if’ so the audience can be in the picture for other reasons other than just fi nding out about Sully. If he hadn’t done what he had done, things would have been a mess. If that river hadn’t been there, things would have been bad. A lot of things have to fall into place for this event to happen but it did because the right guy was there to take advantage of it at the time. If he had waited a few seconds longer, it wouldn’t have worked, and if he had gone too early, he would have not made the airport; he would have come up short on the other end, so there was a lot of ‘what ifs’. But he did the right thing. A water landing can be done and if executed right. It can also be not be so good if executed wrong, as a matter of a quarter of inch, one side hitting before the other, it could spin the plane. There’s a million things that could go wrong there if it wasn’t for good, quality fl ying.

AEROSPACE: The real Sully talked about how you came over to his house and spent three hours with him over lunch. What were you looking for specifi cally?CE: There’s a lot of ironies here and both Tom and I are from the Bay area, Oakland, and it turns out that Sully lives just behind Oakland in Danville so, all of a sudden, you go ‘Oh he lives there’ and so a lot of things fell into place to get this picture going and so after reading the material I said, ‘Oh I’d like to meet this guy. Where do I have to go? Do I have to fl y to Chicago or wherever he lives?’ And then it turns out he lives in Danville – which is on the way to Red Bluff – so I went right up and saw him. So there’s a lot of things outside of logical thinking that were making this project come together. Everything just fell into place. Tom was my only choice to play Sully.

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Tom Hanks as Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, left, and Aaron Eckhart as Jeff Skiles in Sully.

US Coast Guard footage of Flight 1549 shortly after crashing in the Hudson river.

‘Sully: Miracle on the Hudson’ opens in UK cinemas on 2 December 2016

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On 14 October Airbus celebrated the historic milestone of the delivery ofits 10,000th airliner, an A350-900 for Singapore Airlines. TIM ROBINSON looks back on the lessons for other would-be entrants aiming to break into the airliner duopoly.

A model for successful European integration

Airbus as a European (and now global) enterprise has long roots – but can be traced back to the failures of individual national aerospace industries, primarily in the UK and France, to regain the lost lead in civil aviation they enjoyed prior to WW2. Civil airliners such as the VC10 (54 built), BAC One-Eleven (244), Caravelle (282) Dassault Mecure (12) and VFW-Fokker 614 (19) failed to match US competitors, such as the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 (386) Lockheed L-1011 (250) and Boeing 727 (1,832). Co-operation – fi rst in Concorde and military aviation projects showed a way where Europe could pool its industrial resources to produce an airliner that could make a signifi cant breakthrough into mass market global sales.

Indeed, the Anglo-French co-operation in Concorde makes an interesting what-if case of alternate aviation history. If supersonic passenger travel had taken off in the way in which it was


AIR TRANSPORTAirbus reaches 10,000 delivery

10,000 and climbing

It was highly appropriate that at a glitzy ceremony on 14 October in Toulouse, France, the airline that took delivery of Airbus’ 10,000th airliner – a milestone 42 years in the making – was its valued long-term customer Singapore

Airlines (launch customer for the A380 back in 2007). This particular A350-900 is the sixth delivery to the airline in 2016 after it received the fi rst of 67 in March – leading to SIA chief Goh Choon Phong to quip that he: “didn’t expect to be back in Toulouse so soon.”

Singapore Airlines has already put the specially-marked A350 into service on its new non-stop Singapore-San Francisco service. It is also looking forward to putting the ultra-long range A350-900ULR variant (seven of which it has on order) into service in 2018 on its highly anticipated Singapore-New York and Los Angeles direct routes.

The handover event, which saw airline guests, Airbus veterans and media mark this milestone, was perhaps a good occasion to ask – how did Airbus get here in the fi rst place?

The 10,000th Airbus aircraft delivery A350-900 to Singapore Airlines.

The fi rst A300, F-WUAB, after roll out on 28 September 1972, parked in front of a Concorde prototype.

What would have happened had the BAC Three-Eleven widebody been given the go-ahead as well?


1993. Yet, the last 1,000 airliners delivered, incredibly only took 19 months from the 9,000th – an A321 delivered to VietJetAir in 2015.

After the A310, followed the, A320, A340 and A330 (ironically at the time it was the four-engined A340 that was seen as the fl agship product, whereas today the A330 has won new sales and is getting a revamp with the A330neo). Finally, there was the four-engined A380 ‘super jumbo’ and the A350.

Lessons

So what lessons can we draw from Airbus’ experience in taking on the dominant US civil aerospace industry – seeing off two major competitors in civil aviation (Lockheed withdrawing and McDonnell Douglas merging with Boeing)?

This week, all eyes have been on Zhuhai air show in China – both paradoxically Airbus and Boeing’s potentially biggest market and their most likely future competitor – among other countries developing smaller jets, such as Brazil and Japan. Bombardier, meanwhile, has struggled to secure sales for its CSeries. Can China or any of these other new entrants, repeat this success story?

The fi rst lesson – is that it takes time. As Tom Enders notes, it took 19 years to pass the 1,000 delivery mark. This then requires deep pockets and/or some sort of government support. If we take the

ARJ21 as the starting point for AVIC (302 orders so far) it entered service in 2016. Therefore, it could conceivably be 20 years or 2036 before AVIC reaches the 1,000 delivery mark (COMACs C919 has 517 orders – so it could reach that earlier, but it has yet to fl y).

However, even if China builds on western expertise, it will still take time. Trust will have to be earned and it is in the aftermarket support and

originally predicted (MoUs were signed for over 100 aircraft from airlines of the day), would Airbus partners have had their hands full producing SSTs and follow-on designs?

Introducing the widebody

Even before the 1970s, the then Airbus partners were thinking about a new airliner. The fi rst one was the A300 – which would break new ground in being a twin-aisle widebody, powered by only two engines – at a time when its competitors had either four or three. Reliability of powerplants had not yet reached the levels that airlines enjoy today – which meant that many were suspicious of a large airliner powered by only two engines – especially from an unknown European consortium with a history of poor-selling airliners.

An Airbus Industries market analysis from May 1969 predicted a world total market potential of around 1,000 aircraft by 1980, and that of these, the A300B could capture 50 sales in 1975 and about 150 in 1980. Particularly important for the A300B, notes the study, was the growth of European non-scheduled operators, or charter airlines, in the second half of the 1970s, as the package holiday boom took off.

Interestingly, as well as European holidaymakers, an Airbus A300B marketing brochure from fi ve years later in 1974, also pointed to the growing European IT market as driving passenger growth.

Oddly, the A300B almost had free rein as a widebody twin until Boeing launched the 767 in 1982. A RAeS Lecture ‘Co-operation in European Aerospace – The A300B widebody twin’ given by Programme Director Roger Béteille in March 1973 noted that “the DC-10 is already produced in three different versions with the possibility of a twin-engine version to come.” What then, might have happened had Lockheed or McDonnell Douglas quickly moved to produce twin-jet versions of their tri-jets?

Indeed – ironically the closest rival was perhaps from Britain with BAC’s (which unlike Hawker Siddeley was not an Airbus Industries partner) Three-Eleven – a scaled up T-tail twin jet widebody concept which was showcased at the Paris Air Show in 1967/1969 and had disappeared by 1971. Had this rival widebody gone ahead, says Professor Keith Hayward wryly: “It would have torpedoed both UK and European aviation industries”.

First delivered to Air France in May 1974, Airbus fi nally went on to deliver 561 A300s – a quantum leap in sales compared to previous efforts – and the A310 following suit. However, it was a slow process with a gap of 12 years between the fi rst fl ights of the A300 and the A320. Observed Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders at the delivery “In the 1970s we were producing at a rate of half an aircraft a month.”

It thus took 19 years for the consortium to reach 1,000 deliveries (an A340 delivered to Air France in

IF SUPERSONIC PASSENGER TRAVEL HAD TAKEN OFF IN THE WAY IN WHICH IT WAS ORIGINALLY PREDICTED WOULD AIRBUS PARTNERS HAVE HAD THEIR HANDS FULL PRODUCING SSTS AND FOLLOW-ON DESIGNS?

NA

L/R

AeS

NA

L/RA

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Airbus


services where the biggest challenges to any new entrants to airliner business are. Forging the kind of global supplier, services and training network that will allow an airline with an aircraft on the ground (AOG) anywhere from Argentina to Zambia to pick up a phone and get an assured 24/7 response may take decades. For this reason, China’s AVIC is likely to concentrate on its home market fi rst.

Price is obviously another discriminator – and an attractive one for a new entrant hoping to win initial customers through some ‘too-good-to-resist’ deals. However today there are fewer and fewer airlines that would be willing to risk a bargain basement deal

AIR TRANSPORTAirbus reaches 10,000 delivery

unless there was some level of guaranteed customer support afterwards. Unlike military aircraft, airliners fl y much more often and today’s manufacturers target levels of dispatch reliability of above 98% for new models and over 99% for mature aircraft.

Innovating to leap ahead

The second lesson from Airbus is that it had to innovate further and push the technology farther rather than offer a ‘me-too’ product. It is debatable, for instance, if it had launched a tri-jet in the age of the L-1011, DC-10 and 727 whether it would have had the same impact as the world’s fi rst widebody twin in the A300. By losing the third engine, it immediately offered fuel effi ciencies.

In the A320 too, the world’s fi rst fl y-by-wire (FBW) airliner, Airbus pushed the frontiers of fl ight. Today the single-aisle A320 is its ‘bread and butter’ product with over 7,200 built and the revamped neo fl ying off the shelves. Yet marketing it initially was an uphill struggle and Airbus faced fi erce resistance from pilots’ unions concerned about this then unproven (FBW) technology – especially when the company suffered a high-profi le crash at an airshow in Germany in 1988. Today, FBW is taken as standard and available on smaller and smaller jets – but then its safety advantages were still unknown. The reputation of Airbus as having ‘computers in charge’ is one that still echoes today – especially after incidents such as AF447. Yet despite well-publicised incidents, fatal aviation accidents remain rare and have not kept pace with the massive growth in air travel. Thus ongoing innovation such as two-crew fl ightdecks, increased use of composites, FBW, common crew ratings and ETOPS allowed Airbus to differentiate itself from the established competition and win market share.

Conversely, it is noticeable that the one time that Airbus felt it needed a ‘me too’ product to compete with Boeing’s fl agship 747, it has come unstuck – with the A380 arriving just at the time when twin widebodies such as the 777/787 and A330/A350 are carrying more passengers and becoming more effi cient.

So in China’s case, if the ARJ21 can be seen as a test project to learn the ins and outs of airliner development and certifi cation, COMAC’s C919 perhaps is still too much of a ‘me-too’ A320-alike to make suffi cient inroads outside of Chinese airlines (although both Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary and IAG’s, Willie Walsh, have fl irted with COMAC).

All eyes now, therefore, will be on the C929 – a joint Sino-Russian widebody. Partnering Chinese resources with Russian know-how in aerodynamics could make for a dream team to challenge Airbus and Boeing. However, the question remains – in order to convince airlines, what fresh innovation in terms of effi ciencies, safety improvements or cabin comfort will this bring?

Airbus


Listen to the market – carefully

The fi nal lesson might be – listen to the market but listen carefully. For instance, Airbus’ fi rst pass at the A350, a made-over A330, resulted in a lukewarm reception from potential customers leading to a complete redesign and the current A350XWB. Faced with the decision of ploughing ahead with a clean-sheet new single-aisle airliner or revamping the existing A320 with promising new engines from P&W and CFM, Airbus wisely chose the re-engining option – producing its best-ever selling airliner in the A320neo. While in hindsight this decision seems obvious, (next generation engines such as open-rotors seem to be still 10-15 years away) at the time there was pressure for radically effi cient airliners to cope with soaring prices as the world faced ‘peak oil’. The key lesson here, then, is ‘what are your customers really telling you’?

Deep pockets

Finally, while allegations over state aid and subsidies continue to fl y across the Atlantic, there is no doubt that developing a hugely complex and highly expensive product like a new large airliner requires some sort of government political support – whether it comes in the form of launch aid, tax breaks, military R&D spin-offs or pressure on national fl ag carriers to buy a product from the ‘home team’.

While Boeing has fumed about this and it continues to be a live issue, Airbus has benefi tted from the fact that, as a pan-European entity, it is has been able to draw on support (whether economic or political) from multiple governments. While sometimes this has proved to be more of a hindrance in political meddling it has however meant that Airbus was less likely to have been abandoned in its early years than if it only had been a single nation’s project.

The lesson here is that airliner manufacturing is a high-stakes game with a high entry fee. (As is aero engines too – witness China establishing a new $7.5bn jet engine manufacturer this year to catch-up in this critical area where it is still dependent on foreign technology).

Governments may need to protect their chicks until they are strong enough to soar on their own.

Summary

Today Airbus delivers more than 600 aircraft a year and sits on a decade worth of backlog of 6,749 airliners – a far cry from the 1970s where it believed that in 1980 it could sell around 150 A300Bs. Indeed, says Professor Hayward, the A300B, where the story began, was “only ranked third” in French industrial planning after Concorde and the Caravelle. In a game of ‘Marry, Snog, Avoid’ of 70’s European airliners, it was thus the frumpy A300B

(and follow-on aircraft) who the airlines ended up marrying, despite a brief dalliance with glamourpuss Concorde. The poor Caravelle, meanwhile was left (metaphorically speaking) on the shelf. Once it was obvious, though, that Concorde and the Caravelle were not going to be big sales successes – support was swiftly switched to the A300B.

Thus, while the history of Airbus is tied to Franco-German political determination to rebuild their aircraft industries (and some canny commercial dealing by Britain’s Hawker Siddeley), Airbus is now throwing off its state-backed shackles and its past as a European job creation scheme to embrace a global, more Silicon Valley-style future of digitisation, innovation and collaboration.

Indeed, it is perhaps the ultimate irony that Airbus – as a model of successful European co-operation has reached this milestone of 10,000 deliveries just when Europe itself seems to be fracturing at the seams.

Can others emulate its (and Boeing’s) success in airliners? In the long-term, yes, but it has been a long struggle for Airbus to get where it is. This makes it all the more remarkable that a European company has produced over 10,000 airliners – when previously Europe’s biggest selling jet airliners failed to get past 500.

The Airbus family including A320neo, A330, A350 XWB and A380.

This year saw a ground-breaking Royal Navy-led exercise for unmannedsystems, Unmanned Warrior 16, take place off the coast of Scotland. TIM ROBINSON reviews the lessons for future autonomous operations from this technology demonstration.

to defect to the other side”). Instead, with humans always being ‘in the loop’, the autonomy being tested centred on automatic object detection or automatic route-fi nding. Autonomy in this sense then was looking at where machines can reduce the workload on human operators, not replace them.

Secondly the exercise was not run with a defi nite MoD procurement programme in mind that companies were competing for. Instead it was a technology demonstration to explore concepts of operations (CONOPS), tactics and technology. Thus the enthusiasm and commitment shown by industry in participating in a demonstration with no immediate contract resulting from it, is therefore telling as to the wider signifi cance of this event.

Royal Navy – behind the curve?

However, while UW16 is a RN initiative, it might be argued that the Senior Service has fallen behind other UK services (and even perhaps other navies) in embracing aerial unmanned systems – perhaps why in 2014 the then First Sea Lord Admiral George Zambellas prioritised the idea of this demonstration. While the RAF has fl own Predator and Reaper and the Army now operates

Watchkeeper, Desert Hawk and Black Widow, the RN’s only

operational

DEFENCEUnmanned systems

A game for drones

Billed as the biggest-ever military exercise involving unmanned systems, the UK’s Unmanned Warrior 16 took place in two weeks in October off the West Coast of Scotland.

The exercise was run by the Royal Navy with involvement of other services, as well as over 50 participants from the MoD, industry and academia. It also overlapped with another wargame, Exercise Joint Warrior, which allowed UAVs, USVs (unmanned surface vessels) and UUVs (unmanned underwater vessels) to be trialled in operationally representative scenarios. The missions included GEOINT (geospatial intelligence), ASW (anti-submarine warfare), ISTAR and MCM (mine countermeasures).

However, it is important to clarify two things. First, despite the talk of ‘autonomous systems’ and headlines like ‘Robot Wars’ – there were no ‘killer terminators’ on the loose in the exercise. All drones taking part were unarmed and none were truly ‘autonomous’ – as in having their own ‘free will’. (As

one expert quipped recently, “a drone will be truly autonomous when,

after taking off, it decides

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Above: A Thales’ Watchkeeper UAV as operated by the British Army.

Opposite page: Boeing/Schiebel Camcopter.


and collaborative planning. For example, a standard static exercise map would show active airspace areas, with a text box detailing when they were active – leaving the user to interpret when and where airspace is being used. In Esri’s ArcGIS, a time-slider at the bottom of the airspace chart allowed planners to show the CAA and NATS exactly which airspace off the coast of Western Scotland was required each day. What would look like a vast swathe of airspace on a static map, was, in fact, smaller ‘boxes’ that became active and moved over time – easing comprehension and facilitating approval from regulators.

Watchkeeper gets sealegs

Also taking part was Thales’ Watchkeeper UAV as operated by the British Army. Despite its Army

background as a tactical UAS, Thales used UW16 to demonstrate a new maritime

mode on Watchkeeper’s I-Master radar – allowing the UAV to detect surface targets from commercial vessels to small fast craft – and cross-cue these to its other EO/IR sensor. Flying from Parc Aberporth in Wales, imagery and data from

Watchkeeper was streamed to the ACER combat management system

on board a support ship, Northern River, as well as back to the operations room in

Aberporth.This demonstration then of a littoral capability

for the Watchkeeper, (which has an endurance of 16 hours), shows that sometimes it is not new platforms or UAVs that are needed but just expanding the mission sets and capabilities of existing UAVs and sharing this information with new users or customers. Post-Afghanistan, Watchkeeper has now become much more useful for UK forces.

ScanEagle demos new sensor

Another UAV showing off new capabilities at UW16 was the Boeing/Insitu ScanEagle, with an innovative 180° wide-area ‘optical radar’ sensor called ViDAR. ViDAR, developed by Sentient Vision, is already

experience with UAVs has been the Scan Eagle UAV with 700X Sqn from 2013. This surveillance capability, brought in as a UOR (Urgent Operating Requirement) is now set to lapse in 2017 unless it is brought into the core MoD budget or some other solution found.

Even then, it is instructive to compare with other navies. The US Navy which already example, already fi elds the MQ-8B FireScout as a shipborne VTOL UAV, is about to fi eld the MQ-4C Triton and is working on the MQ-25A Stingray – a carrier-borne unmanned aerial tanker. The US Marines, meanwhile, fl y the RQ-7B Shadow, as well as the RQM-11 Raven and the Insitu RQ-21A Integrator (Blackjack) – as well as testing unmanned cargo delivery with the K-MAX in Afghanistan.

Indeed, it is not just the might of the US Navy where UAVs are becoming standard. The ScanEagle UAV, for example, is now operated by over 20 other operators, (including the Australian, Italian, Pakistani, Spanish and Tunisian Navies). So, despite 700X Sqn and a couple of technology demonstrations (VTOL and a 3D printed UAV), it might be argued that, before UW16, the RN was in danger of missing out on some of the opportunities presented by UAVs.

However, UW16 was not just a technology demonstration just for technology’s sake. The service faces pressing manpower challenges in the future. Incorporating more autonomous systems to reduce the burden and leaving humans to concentrate on core tasks, is thus not a ‘nice to have’ option for the Senior Service but an imperative that is focusing minds on how to do more with limited numbers of people.

Will UW16 allow the RN to accelerate its understanding of unmanned systems, leapfrog rivals and use autonomous systems in the most optimal way to augment its sailors? Let’s take a look at some of the most noteworthy UAVs, systems and sensors that took part.

Planning in the cloud

As well as being biggest ever gathering of unmanned systems for a military exercise, UW16 was also notable for being the fi rst ever military exercise to be planned in ‘the cloud’ – thanks to Esri UK’s ArcGIS Online geospatial software. This has replaced maps, charts and Powerpoint in organising this extremely complex military exercise and allows users to log-in via a secure web portal to see a constantly updated live plan.

Online maps and charts may not seem like a big deal but using this content management system (with multiple ‘layers’ of GEOINT data and intelligence) has proved a huge leap in visualisation

A DRONE WILL BE TRULY AUTONOMOUS WHEN, AFTER TAKING OFF, IT DECIDES TO DEFECT TO THE OTHER SIDE

Thal

es


being trialled by Royal Australian Navy which has ScanEagles, which has described it as a ‘game-changer’ for its ability to solve a critical problem for small UAVs – that of a the ‘drinking straw’ or tiny fi elds of view of existing sensors. The 9-megapixel ViDAR uses sophisticated optical recognition to automatically spot objects at sea, even in heavy seas and then allows the main sensor to be cued so a human can make a positive identifi cation. As well as ships, fast attack craft and jetskis, during UW16 the ViDAR-equipped ScanEagles also detected helicopters, other UAVs and a submarine periscope – at one point alerting the human operator while they were observing a land target with the main camera. Small boats representing fast attack threats were spotted at 19nm away behind a headland before they had even had chance to set off, showing the capability of ScanEagle. Sentient says that it is now working on building auto recognition and identifi cation into ViDAR, with the fi rst objects being ‘search and rescue’ targets (eg liferafts). Interestingly this automated wide-

DEFENCEUnmanned systems

Unmanned systems taking part in UW16 were Blue Bear Systems‘ BlackStar (used in a collaborative MCM scenario) the Griffi n Aerospace SeaHunter UAV and Lockheed Martin’s Indago quadcopter.

area optical search is not just for UAVs. ViDAR is also set to equip the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s new Challenger 604s to augment human eyes and the main Wescam MX-15 sensor.

Another unmanned system demonstrated by Boeing was its Sharc USV – a fuel-less surface ‘glider’. Developed by Liquid Robotics, this autonomous vehicle, comes in two halves – a low-signature fl at surface ‘surfboard’ fi tted with solar panels and underwater ‘blades’ that use wave power to slowly power it at around 2kt. The Sharc is fi tted with AIS and autonomous navigation software to avoid other vessels and can be fi tted with a variety of mission packages including towed array passive sonar, surface sonar, ISR (ELINT) systems or communication relays. During UW16, Boeing deployed four Sharcs in an ASW role with towed arrays, which successfully detected and tracked a live submarine.

Boeing is also working to make the Sharc air-droppable via parachute using an aerodynamic shell that would protect it. While it would be too large for a tactical aircraft (or even a P-8) to carry internally or on hardpoints, it could be rolled out of the back of a C-130 or C-17. One can than imagine how, in time of crisis or confl ict, a swarm of Sharcs might be air-dropped 200nm from an enemy port, before slowly ‘swimming’ there to lurk for six months at a time, monitoring underwater, surface and electronic emissions.

Boeing’s grand vision, which it aims to demo more fully in 2017, is to turn the maritime environment into an autonomous network, linking sub, surface and air unmanned vehicles to provide new levels of situational awareness and to cue skilled human operators to only the targets that they are interested in.

Leonardo demos ESM and radar

Meanwhile, Leonardo-Finmeccanica brought both UAV platforms and sensors to test at UW16. Participating from the platform side was Leonardo Helicopter’s SW-4 Solo optionally-piloted helicopter which in 2015, took part in a ship-based VTOL capability demo for the Royal Navy. This year it had been beefed up with new sensors, including Leonardo-Selex’s Osprey 30 fl at panel AESA radar, and the Sage ESM, as well as the SkyISTAR mission system.

Both the Osprey AESA radar and Sage ESM are now attracting attention for their light weight and compact size, which allows smaller UAVs to carry sensors previously only fi tted to larger aircraft. A UAV carrying ESM, for example, can get high (extending the detection range of hostile threat emitters) but can also provide another sensor if fl ying from a surface ship or battle group, to triangulate and thus narrow down the location enemy radars. (It also has the benefi t, that if it does

ScanEagle’s Sentient Vision’s Kestrel Maritime ViDAR optical detection system.

Sentient Vision

Lockheed Martin

Boeing


wander over a ‘radar silent’ air defence threat, then no crew would be lost).

As well as fl ying on its own Solo VTOL UAV, Leonardo’s Osprey AESA radar and Sage ESM were also from on the smaller Schiebel Camcopter S-100, brought by Boeing. Indeed, it is signifi cant that the Osprey AESA radar has already been selected by the US Navy to equip its MQ-8C Fire Scout UAV. Another lesson then from from UW16 is that smaller, lighter sensors are now permitting UAVs to tackle missions previously reserved for bigger platforms.

Summary

It seems clear then that UW16 will provide plenty of food for thought for MoD, industry and defence analysts for months to come. Despite paper studies and simulations, if is only by getting technology into the fi eld and testing it in the hands of users, that the real opportunities and benefi ts become apparent – as well as practical drawbacks. For example, British Army manoeuvres in September 1912 saw Blue Forces use observation aircraft to decisively win an exercise against opposing Red Forces. Only two years later, this use of airpower to scout for enemy forces was critical in discovering German forces attempting to encircle the British Army at Mons. The rest, as they say, is history.

While UW16 may have broken new ground (or water?) in the scale and variety of UAS/USV/UUV integration, there remain a few challenges.

One is the obvious one of defence funding. While some of these platforms may appear affordable, the real cost is likely to be in the IT, communications and ISTAR networks to allow imagery, data and intelligence to be shared between ships, aircraft, UAVs, and ground stations. Integration then (especially between bespoke or legacy systems) may be the real cost. It is notable, for instance, that the exercise did not include any simulated QE2 carriers and F-35B in this demonstration.

Second, there is the risk of drawing the wrong lessons or not being innovative enough in adopting this new technology. Merely replicating existing manned air/naval missions but with a UAV, USV or UUV platform will not exploit these capabilities to the hilt – and could prove disappointing. Cultural obstacles and ‘we have always done it this way’ may be bigger barriers than technical challenges.

Third, is that while UW16 was billed as the biggest military exercise involving unmanned systems yet, there were some notable platforms missing. RAF Reapers, for example, are busy in operations and not yet cleared to operate in UK airspace. BAE Systems’ Taranis UCAV demonstrator meanwhile, has only fl own (so far as we know) in the remote outback in Australia. Meanwhile, Airbus Defence and Space’s Zephyr 7 HALE (three of which are have been bought by the UK MoD) is still being built at Farnborough. Though this, of course, was a Royal Navy-led exercise that involved a focus on maritime missions, it might have been useful to explore these other platforms capabilities. Could, for example, Taranis (whose successor FCAS may be an effective SEAD platform) also be used in the anti-ship role (France is already testing maritime integration with its Neuron)? What might the persistent Zephyr 7 (able to stay aloft for three months at a time) be able to do, especially when equipped with a maritime radar? These questions, as well as how the F-35, P-8 and Protector UAV will fi t into the future battlespace, will have to be left to any future UW17 or UW18.

In short, the Royal Navy may have been behind the curve in unmanned systems – but UW16 has now catapulted it into one of the most innovative services in the game of drones.

Unmanned Warrior 16 was the fi rst military exercise to be planned entirely in the ‘cloud’.

The Leonardo SW-4 Solo optionally piloted rotorcraft.

Esri/U

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Leonardo

We speak to GKN Aerospace’s CEO, KEVIN CUMMINGS,about Brexit, the acquisition of Fokker, employee skill

shortages and the lack of women in the UK’s aerospace engineering workforce.

AEROSPACE: Do you expect Brexit to affect your future access to EU aerospace R&D projects – for example the next Clean Sky?

KC: No, as again, we are a global business. GKN Aerospace has signifi cant technology centres in countries, such as Holland and Sweden, as well as in the UK. We will continue to be active in a number of national and European R&D programmes from these countries. The UK technology centres continue to be well engaged with ATI R&D programmes and GKN Aerospace plays a very active role in the both the strategic direction and ensuring industrial partner needs are recognised in future UK/Europe developments.

AEROSPACE: Airlines are now deferring orders and sales have fallen at major airshows. Are we now heading for a slump in civil aerospace?

KC: A reduction in orders has been anticipated as the backlog of the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) has reached a record level. In the short to


PLANE SPEAKINGKevin Cummings

AEROSPACE: Last month (November) you gave a keynote speech at the RAeS President’s Conference. Can you give us a taste of what you focused on?

KC: I took the opportunity to look at how the UK has come to be the second largest aerospace industry in the world. What has driven its success in the past and what lessons that should teach us for the future. Only by remaining innovative and investing in our industry will the UK earn the right to drive the technology developments of aircraft in the future

AEROSPACE: This year we have seen the political earthquake of the EU Referendum. Has that had any impact on your day-to-day business?

KC: GKN Aerospace is a global company with the majority of our operations outside of the UK and many within other countries across Europe. Due to our global footprint, we do not anticipate any signifi cant impact from Brexit.

Plane Speaking with Kevin Cummings

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AEROSPACE: Boeing announced at Farnborough this year ‘additional bidding opportunities on Boeing programmes’ for UK suppliers. Do you plan to take advantage of this?

KC: We are very much a global business and we work with our key customers, including Boeing, around the world. While we are always looking for ways to strengthen these partnerships, we do not comment on specifi c programmes or bids.

AEROSPACE: How has GKN benefi ted from the industrial strategy defi ned by the Aerospace Growth Partnership? Is that working, or is there more that needs to be done to keep the UK competitive?

KC: The most signifi cant impact on GKN Aerospace has been the creation of the ATI, which does an important job in co-ordinating the UK aerospace strategy. This allows GKN Aerospace to input into the strategy and collaborate with key customers and academic institutes in developing technologies.

AEROSPACE: What ATI-funded R&D projects is GKN involved with?

KC: GKN Aerospace is involved in a wide range of ATI programmes, from ones led by GKN Aerospace, such as ‘VIEWS’ which brings together a number of manufacturing and assembly technologies for wing structures, through to ‘Horizon’ which collaborates with Airbus and our GKN Powder Metallurgy division in developing the research to allow optimisation of powder, equipment and process for additive manufacturing.

AEROSPACE: Do you think that the UK is still facing an engineering skills crisis in the future? What more would you like to see done in education or STEM?

mid-term, production of aircraft is still forecast to increase.

AEROSPACE: We have seen major OEMs products delayed by supply chain bottlenecks. Are the OEMs still ratcheting up the pressure to cut costs and cut time?

KC: Within the aerospace market there is constant pressure to innovate and, at the same time, to decrease cycle times and lower cost. Our customers put pressure on us to achieve this, just as we put pressure on those in our supply chain. It’s a challenge but I fi rmly believe it’s one that makes us a stronger company.

AEROSPACE: GKN’s latest acquisition was Fokker. What have they brought to the group? What new opportunities does this acquisition provide?

KC: The acquisition strengthened our position in aerostructures, taking GKN Aerospace to global No. 2, and it also brought a strong presence in Eurasia to complement our existing position. We now have a complete composite technology base, including moving composites into the landing gear environment, and the wiring business has also broadened our reach on aircraft, bringing new opportunities as structures and electrifi cation become increasingly integrated. The acquisition also increased GKN’s shipset value on key growth programmes in both the commercial and military markets.

AEROSPACE: After Volvo Aero and Fokker, will we see any other acquisitions in the near futur, or is that it for the moment?

KC: GKN Aerospace is focused on growth. Organic growth is, of course, a priority but we continue to review strategic opportunities and we remain open to acquire other businesses in the future, where it makes good business sense to do so.

AEROSPACE: What are your market sector priorities going forward, (civil, military or even geographically, eg China)?

KC: We are currently satisfi ed with our balance of civil (75%) and military (25%) business. Beyond that, our strategy is clear: to develop innovative technologies that are highly valued by our customers and differentiate us in the market place. This differentiating technology, allied to operational excellence (quality products, delivered safely and on time to our customers) and our strong global footprint (more than 50 manufacturing facilities across 15 countries in three continents) will enable us to achieve growth for the business.

OF SIMILAR IMPORTANCE IS TO ENSURE THAT ENGINEERING IS MUCH MORE OPEN TO WOMEN AND, IN PARTICULAR, YOUNG WOMEN

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KC: The UK has a long heritage of aerospace capability and remains at the forefront of the industry today. Looking to the future though, it is important that expertise is developed and retained to preserve our position. I think there are two key areas to focus on. The fi rst is to ensure that signifi cant product development work is secured in the UK, with responsibility for high value design and new technology development to meet future product and customer targets. Of similar importance is to ensure that engineering is much more open to women and, in particular, young women. Having this group so woefully under-represented means we are missing out on half the intellectual might of the country – we cannot expect to compete at the top table if this continues.

AEROSPACE: What do you think are the most exciting technologies that GKN is working on at the moment?

KC: GKN Aerospace is always working in parallel to deliver great technology to our customers today,

‘design for AM’. When we can take raw powder and manufacture complex, highly optimised, safety-critical parts, there really are few limits – it will require a total shift in how we think about manufacturing.

AEROSPACE: Post-Brexit vote, what would your message to the Government be about keeping UK aerospace in the top tier?

KC: Quite simply, to play to our strengths. We have the second biggest aerospace industry in the world. We are building a product which consumers want, and the world needs. However, the only way the UK will remain at the forefront of aerospace technology is if we can maintain a truly open economy, with no barriers to trade; if there is investment in the industry, a truly supportive research environment and a highly skilled workforce, open to all. In all these areas, the Government has a big role to play.

PLANE SPEAKINGKevin Cummings

KC: The focus needs to be on improving materials, manufacturing processes and systems to make air transport more effi cient, minimising impact on the environment and ever more cost effective. Any technology that contributes to these goals will win in the market.

AEROSPACE: How do you see the 3D printing industry evolving? Will it replace traditional manufacturing?

KC: Additive manufacturing will transform manufacturing across multiple industries, including aerospace. At present AM components are typically smaller, secondary structures, with engineers primarily focused on certifying parts as direct replacements for existing metallic or composite components. In the future, as engineers become more comfortable and the process and materials become better qualifi ed, we will see larger, safety-critical AM components. Furthermore, entirely new component shapes will be introduced as we learn to design for the characteristics of AM, so-called

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while developing the solutions of tomorrow. Additive Manufacturing (AM) fi ts both categories and is a major focus for us. We already have AM parts fl ying in civil, military and spacecraft, and we continue to explore the huge opportunities which AM presents for component optimisation. I believe that AM will revolutionise manufacturing. On the materials side, we are particularly focused on the next generation of composite technologies, including fi bre metal laminate (FML) and thermoplastics, both of which can offer signifi cant strength and weight benefi ts to our customers. Finally, from a systems perspective, we have some exciting technologies in anti-icing and electrical wiring systems, which will become increasingly important as we move towards more integrated structures.

AEROSPACE: For any future generation of airliners for 2030s beyond the A320neo or 737 MAX – where do you think the key R&D investment needs to be focused?

The GKN-produced Boeing 737 MAX winglets.

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41DECEMBER 2016

Afterburner

42 Message from RAeS- President“Although there are a number of sesquicentennial events still coming in the early months of 2017, I thought I’d refl ect, with input from Martin and Sir Stephen, on how our 150th celebrations have set us up for the future: not an exhaustive list, so please forgive me if I do not mention all the events and achievements of this remarkable year!”

- Chief Executive“A huge vote of thanks is due to Colin Smith CBE HonFRAeS, Group President of Rolls-Royce, who stepped in at short notice to deliver the 2016 Brabazon Lecture which reflected on the technologies of the past, present and future set against the background of his 40-year career with Rolls-Royce.”

44 Book ReviewsThe Avro Manchester, Kings of the Air, Initial Airworthiness and Drones.

47 Library AdditionsBooks submitted to the National Aerospace Library.

48 Sir Henry Royce LectureThe 52nd Sir Henry Royce Lecture celebrated the Society’s 150th anniversary and promoted the shared innovative aerospace history of Rolls-Royce and the RAeS.

49 150th Anniversary GiftsChristmas gifts to suite all tastes, classic or contemporary.

50 Stepping up to Management

Wednesday 2 September saw some of the future stars and innovators of the British aerospace industry descend on Hamilton Place for the Young Person’s annual conference.

51 National Aerospace Library

Merchandise and gifts using images from the National Aerospace Library’s extensive image collection.

52 DiaryFind out when and where around the world the latest aeronautical and aerospace lectures and events are happening.

www.aerosociety.com

i fFind us on Twitter Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

Two Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs. Lockheed Martin.

Diary6 DecemberWilbur and Orville Wright LectureGrowing the Future RAFACM Sir Stephen Hillier KCB CBE DFC ADC MA FRAeS RAF, Chief of the Air Staff, Royal Air Force

42

Message from RAeSOUR PRESIDENT

Prof Chris Atkin

THE SOCIETY IS AT ITS BEST DEALING WITH UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENTS AND RESPONDED TO THE UK BREXIT VOTE IN JUNE WITH A WELL-SUPPORTED BREXIT CONFERENCE EARLY IN NOVEMBER


Afterburner

Although there are a number of sesquicentennial events still coming in the early months of 2017, I thought I’d refl ect, with input from Martin and Sir Stephen, on how our 150th celebrations have set us up for the future: not an exhaustive list, so please forgive me if I do not mention all the events and achievements of this remarkable year!

The excellent Branch events which Martin, Sir Stephen or I managed to join with include Coventry, our senior Branch, sharing its own 90th birthday celebrations with a congratulatory note to Her Majesty, which was equally warmly acknowledged; Oxford, marking James Sadler’s historical fi rst aeronautical excursion of October 1784; Preston (Frank Roe) and Brussels (von Kármán) launching new named lectures; others, like Shrivenham, Bristol, Washington DC, Belfast, Montreal and Seattle, pushing the boat out with some exceptional hospitality to promote the Society, marking the achievement of 150 years and underlining our continuing contribution in the future. In writing this article I have to lament the relatively limited radius of travel of the presidential team. However, Sir Stephen was able to join the New Zealand Division’s 150th Anniversary Dinner, and I shall have celebrated the sesquicentenary with the Pakistan Division by the time you read this. Visits to the Australian and South African Divisions are in the diary for the new year, in combination with some academic duties!

Many Branches very successfully engaged local industry in their events: Gloucester and Cheltenham with a young persons’ lecture competition; the East of England Branches celebrated innovation with seminars and panel sessions; Hamburg with a panel discussion after the Sedlmayr lecture; Bedford with a locally-sourced innovation expo at Shuttleworth; Sheffi eld with a remarkable STEM day; Stevenage running an airship challenge (p 54) for schools (with Boscombe lining up a balloon event for February); Munich celebrating their own 25th with a lecture double-header and a busy visit itinerary for me. We can also look forward to the future activities of our four new Branches founded in 2016, in Abu Dhabi, Nottingham, Islamabad and Kamra, Pakistan.

At 4HP the birthday celebrations were kicked off with the splendid, keenly-contested debate on the future need for pilots; the Banquet was hosted at Guildhall and supported by HRH the Prince Michael of Kent; the May Branches Conference marked the 150th by meeting at No.4; our longest-serving members (the most recent having joined in 1948) and Past Presidents were brought together with a good number of our youngest members to swap stories over an anniversary lunch; the end of November saw both young members and a remarkable collection of CEOs and CTOs discussing the nature of innovation in the future; and, to close the year, at the Wilbur and Orville Wright Lecture we shall be hosting aerospace VIPs connected with the events depicted on our fi rst

day covers, including the great-great-great-grandson of Sir George Cayley, who coincidentally taught me Latin at school (Sir Digby, not Sir George).

The Society is at its best dealing with unexpected developments and responded to the UK Brexit vote in June with a well-supported Brexit conference early in November, which has strengthened in the UK the Society’s reputation for independence and for cogent analysis of the issues by our broad-based membership; internationally, I have also been putting in a few extra hours explaining that the Society’s global outlook and signifi cance, like those of our sector, are absolutely unchanged by domestic British politics!

Looking inward, Council has completed separate major reviews of Council members’ own wider responsibilities within the Society; how the Society engages with our membership; and particularly how to engage better with our growing international membership. I hope to be able to share the conclusions of these discussions in subsequent issues of AEROSPACE.

So we have had a productive and inspiring year, and I would like to both thank and congratulate Lee Balthazor and the 2016 team, as well as Branch committees and no doubt many unsung individuals, for delivering an extensive, varied and interesting set of events to mark our 150th. Nevertheless, there has been very little suspension of ‘business as usual’ this year, so I would also like to thank, on your behalf, the staff of the Society who have had to step up this year and who have been, as always, a great credit to the RAeS.

To close, may I wish you all a restful Christmas and a prosperous 2017, with a particular nod to our community in New Zealand for the re-building work that lies ahead.

In early September the RAeS Belfast Branch held a Gala Dinner in the iconic building of Titanic Belfast to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Society and also 100 years since aircraft production began in Ireland at Harland & Wolff, when they received a ‘learning contract’ to build 300 Airco DH6 aircraft. Marking Belfast’s rich aerospace heritage and manufacturing industry, this event was attended by almost 100 representatives and guests of the Northern Ireland Aerospace Defence Security & Space (ADS).

Simon C Luxmoore

THE CONFERENCE PROVIDED SUBSTANTIAL, HIGH-QUALITY MATERIAL THAT WILL INFORM THE SOCIETY’S ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT ON THE IMPLICATIONS, OPTIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR AEROSPACE FROM BREXIT

OUR CHIEF EXECUTIVE

DECEMBER 2016 43

I am pleased to announce a number of changes within the staff as Simon Levy becomes Head of Business Development, Simon Whalley takes on responsibility for the Publications Team as Head of External Affairs, and Emma Bossom becomes Marketing and Communications Director. There are promotions for Alex Brodie to the role of Database and Operational Support Co-ordinator and Gosia Skierkiewicz is promoted to Membership Subscriptions Officer. We also welcome Neeral Patel and Jack Suttie to the Membership Team and Tim Wood to the Business Development Team.

At a well-attended ‘Brexit and Aerospace’ conference, the Society was delighted to secure the Minister of State for Exiting the European Union, the Rt Hon David Jones MP, and the President of Airbus UK, Paul Kahn FRAeS, to deliver the keynote addresses. Chair of the House of Commons Education Committee, Neil Carmichael MP, joined the education and skills session panel. In his speech, the Minister, with particular responsibility in his department for aerospace and aviation, is eager to receive expert views and evidence from organisations like the Society and encouraged continuous engagement with his officials over the next few years. The conference provided substantial, high-quality material that will inform the Society’s advice to Government on the implications, options and opportunities for aerospace from Brexit.

Early in October, No.4 Hamilton Place was awarded London’s Best Corporate Summer Party Venue by The London Venue Awards 2016. Louise Warren, our Events and Sales Manager, stood before 380 industry professionals to accept the award, following a rigorous judging process carried out by a panel of over 30 expert representatives from a variety of venues. We believe we owe this win to the expertise of our events and catering team, and our popular Argyll Room and roof top Terrace affording the finest views over Hyde Park.

Following the AGM of the New Zealand Division, Frank Sharp FRAeS stood down as President of the Division and John MaciIree MRAeS began his term as President (John is a Senior Adviser in the Ministry of Transport).

A huge vote of thanks is due to Colin Smith CBE HonFRAeS, Group President of Rolls-Royce, who stepped in at short notice to deliver the 2016 Brabazon Lecture which reflected on the technologies of the past, present and future set against the background of his 40-year career with Rolls-Royce. The lecture was well attended and it was particularly pleasing to see so many younger people present and they played their full part in an excellent question and answer session.

Our Skills and Careers team, led by Roz Azouzi, organised another very successful Careers in Aerospace LIVE event at the beginning of November. Our thanks go to the exhibitors representing the whole aerospace and aviation community and wish them every success in their autumn recruitment.

Our resilient and very capable Head of Skills and Careers has many ‘balls to juggle’ during her very busy year which is often spent travelling around the country delivering various programmes and other products on behalf of the Society. Most recently they were at AMRC where our Sheffield Branch hosted an excellent day-long programme of events aimed at primary and secondary school pupils and then concluded in the evening with a branch lecture. An enormous amount of work was put into the organisation of this event by both the Branch Committee and Sheffield Hallam University volunteers and other volunteers too numerous to mention. However, like so many outreach and Cool Aeronautics events I have attended over recent years they were let down by last minute no-shows – schools who have committed over time and right up to the last minute but on the day do not appear. This has long been a frustration of mine when we hold the events at No.4 – you are expecting and have planned for a full house and a very significant proportion just do not appear. In exceptional cases we now financially support the provision of transport to help these pupils attend but disappointingly I think there is a tendency at some schools to believe that not stepping up to your commitments is acceptable!


Louise Warren, RAeS Events and Sales Manager, centre, collects the London’s Best Corporate Summer Party Venue award on behalf of the RAeS venue team.

Book Reviews


Afterburner

KINGS OF THE AIR

The Avro Manchester bomber, largely seen as a failure, is vindicated in this remarkable book by what must have been a prodigious effort of research on the part of the author

Avro Manchester IA. RAeS (NAL).

The result is an excellent overview of the French air forces from their origins until the end of the war, covering all aspects of aerial activity ...

THE AVRO MANCHESTER

but sometimes harrowing to read, are the stories of all 200 aircraft and their crews in operations against fi erce and determined anti-aircraft opposition together with the diffi culties of returning home when an engine had failed or been damaged, in a machine that could barely maintain height in that confi guration. There are many personal accounts by crew members, including those who, after baling out, escaped and returned to this country.

The Manchester airframe, with little modifi cation, became that of the four Merlin-engined Lancaster, one of this country’s most revered aeroplanes, elements of which survived through to the Shackleton aircraft fi nally decommissioned in 1991.

Your reviewer sees this book as a major contribution to the early history of WW2 and a memorial to the valour and commitment of the crews who took part, besides whom one can only stand in awe.

R G BoorCEng FRAeS

The Legend behind the LancasterBy R KirkbyFonthill Media Limited, Millview House, Toadsmoor Road, Stroud GL5 2TB, UK. 2015. 509pp. Illustrated. £50. ISBN 978-1-78155-285-8.

The Avro Manchester bomber, largely seen as a failure, is vindicated in this remarkable book by what must have been a prodigious effort of research on the part of the author.

Designed and built to an Air Ministry specifi cation of 1936, the Manchester was one of the fi rst and, if I may use the term, modern bombers, in view of its stressed skin construction. It was powered by two Rolls-Royce Vulture engines each of which was a pair of developed Kestrels, itself a very reliable and successful engine, that were combined on a common crankcase with one of them inverted to form an ‘X’ confi guration, to give an engine of great power.

Yet it was not to be. The, so-called, ‘big-end’ bearings of the connecting rods to the crankshaft now had to carry the stress of four rather than two pistons and these, among other things, proved unreliable. But this was war, the exigency of which in the dark days of the early 1940s, meant weapons had to be pressed into use while the efforts to improve them went on.

So the Manchester went to war, and in this book, dense with information, photographs and illustrations,

French Aces and Airmen of the Great WarBy I SumnerPen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Books, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, S Yorkshire S70 2AS, UK. 2015. 252pp. Illustrated. £25. ISBN 978-1-78346-338-1.

Despite the title this is not just another book on air aces. It is a history of French aviation in the Great War. To write such a book is no easy task. The French archives were removed by the Germans in WW2 and then destroyed in an air raid. No offi cial history was ever written (the author does not mention this), nor were any comprehensive histories written between the wars apart from one on bombing.

The stated aim, in any case, was to tell the story in the words of the airmen, using magazine articles and memoirs, although some well-known ones are

not used. The result is an excellent overview of the French air forces from their origins until the end of the war, covering all aspects of aerial activity including balloons, reconnaissance and so on, as well as the major battles.

The book ends abruptly with the Armistice and we do not get his view on the French air forces contribution to fi nal victory or a balance of accounts with the Germans. However, this does not detract from the overall achievement of producing a balanced account from a paucity of sources. The translations from the French are excellent and luckily the author does not require the services of an editor, which publishers no longer provide.

There are two maps and photographs but no footnotes or bibliographical essay which would both have been useful. Nonetheless all afi cionados of the air operations of WW1 will wish to read this book.

Christian Busby

DECEMBER 2016 45

INITIAL AIRWORTHINESS


Above and below: The e-Go prototype, G-EFUN. e-Go aeroplanes are seeking a buyer to move the company into full production of the single-seat aircraft and future production of the multi-seat variants. e-Go.

This book could become a ‘go-to’ reference for initial compliance information in any designer’s archive

Determining the Acceptability of New Airborne SystemsBy G GrattonSpringer. 2015. 319pp. Illustrated. £134.50. ISBN 9783-319-11408-8..

The challenges facing would-be aeroplane designers are many and varied and, in all cases, are complicated by the paucity of authoritative sources of necessary guidance in preparing regulatory compliance. Even in this age of web-based searches, it remains a complex task to access appropriate information, let alone ‘softer’ advice, which is often more useful than bland requirements. In Initial Airworthiness, which might more graphically be entitled: ‘How to design and justify the compliance of an airframe’, Guy Gratton brings together both the details and the advice necessary to form a primer for those who have interest or aspiration to design an airframe. The author draws on his wide experience of aeroplane types and roles for this volume which will be of particular value to the individual designer-builder of light sport aeroplanes, hopefully encouraged by the new UK regulations for an experimental category, which was recently negotiated by the CAA as CAP1220.

The range of the necessary material is so wide that it is almost impossible to provide all-enveloping detail in one volume of this size. In each chapter, the existing requirements are compared and contrasted, before giving deeper guidance on the anticipated, but often unstated (in requirement documents), the means of compliance. The concise presentation of the sources and classes

of internationally acceptable design requirements is a particularly useful service, as it appears that, in the future, international regulators will enable designers much greater fl exibility in the choice of the standard, such as under the US ASTM approach. The author’s experience enables him to continue by provide practical examples in the choice of compliance methods ranging, according to need, from complex computerised analysis to ‘back-of-an-envelope’ hand calculation estimates, some of which are presented as illustrations! The interface with fl ight test and evaluation is managed pretty well but is only in a few cases are there details of fl ight test techniques, without considering such aspects as planning, risk assessment, preparation and instrumentation (specialist subjects in themselves).

It would be easy to criticise the balance of the content of such a book. This reviewer would have preferred to have seen more included on design for stiffness, structural stability, aero-elasticity and fl utter, perhaps in favour of the very detailed treatment given to the standard atmosphere and anemometry, which dominates the early part of this book. That said, all the topics are treated in a readable style, with illustrative examples and diagrams, complete with softer advice and diverting historic detail.

This book could become a ‘go-to’ reference for initial compliance information in any designer’s archive. It can hardly be expected to provide the fi ne detail, but whatever the airframe design issue may be, it is a very good place to start. Sadly, the principle limitation of this admirably broad overview tome is a total lack of references for further detailed study.

Howard Torode

46

Book ReviewsAfterburner


... what makes this book stand out among the rest is the excellent illustrations of unmanned aircraft of all shapes and sizes, manufactured and operated worldwide ...

DRONES

it is becoming established around the world in a relatively short period of time.

Andrew ChadwickCEng MRAeS

An Illustrated Guide to the Unmanned Aircraft that are Filling our SkiesBy M J Dougherty

Amber Books, London. Distributed by Casemate UK, 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW, UK. 2015. 224pp. Illustrated. £19.99. ISBN 978-1-78274-255-5.

The global market for unmanned aircraft – commonly known as ‘drones’ – has grown substantially over the past few years, primarily driven by the growth in military use. Technical capabilities of unmanned aircraft, and their associated technologies, have matured over this period, such that these technical developments are enabling new markets and driving high growth rates in civil applications.

This beautifully illustrated book details the history of unmanned aircraft, explains how they work, including technical details of unmanned aircraft design, such as avionics, engines, radar, sensors and weapons, and features well known systems in action today, ranging from the MQ-9 Reaper to the hand-launched Cropcam. Containing over 200 colour photographs and diagrams, this book presents in detail the cutting edge of military and civilian unmanned aircraft technology.

The fi rst section of the book looks at the military use of unmanned aircraft. Starting with the introduction of weapons, such as the V1, to the growing variety of present day systems in use today. There are chapters on combat ‘drones’ – such as Reaper – as well as long endurance reconnaissance aircraft, such as Global Hawk. In addition, there are chapters describing medium and long-range drones, a variety of rotary-wing drones, plus small hand-launched aircraft.

The second section of the book is dedicated to civil drones, including those used for agriculture and wildlife monitoring, those used by NASA, as well as underwater unmanned systems and those used in space. Finally, the book concludes with a piece on the potential future development of drones.

If there is one criticism, it is that there does tend to be a strong US bias in the unmanned aircraft presented. However, as mentioned previously, what makes this book stand out among the rest is the excellent illustrations of unmanned aircraft of all shapes and sizes, manufactured and operated worldwide, supported by clear graphics and technical detail. The book is well written, engaging, and maintains interest throughout, and I would recommend it to anybody wishing to learn more about this fascinating technology and how

Above: A Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scout prepares to land on the guided-missile destroyer, USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109). Northrop Grumman.

Right: The fi rst Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle waits in the encapsulation cell of the Evolved Expendable Launch vehicle. USAF.

DECEMBER 2016 47

Library Additions


AEROMODELLING

Junkers Ju 87. Spotlight On series. S Schatz. Published by Stratus, Poland, on behalf of Mushroom Model Publications, 3 Gloucester Close, Petersfi eld, Hants GU32 3AX, UK (www.mmpbooks.biz). 2016. 43pp. Illustrated. £19. ISBN 978-8365281-13-5.

Produced for aeromodellers, a compilation of detailed colour diagrams recording the aircraft markings of the famous German dive bomber through its many variants.

Hawker Tornado, Typhoon, Tempest V. Spotlight On series. J Swiatlon. Published by Stratus, Poland, on behalf of Mushroom Model Publications, 3 Gloucester Close, Petersfi eld, Hants GU32 3AX, UK (www.mmpbooks.biz). 2016. 43pp. Illustrated. £19. ISBN 978-8365281-09-8.

Produced for aeromodellers, a compilation of detailed colour diagrams recording the aircraft markings/ camoufl age schemes of these aircraft in RAF operation.

F-104 Starfi ghter Special Camoufl ages. Spotlight On series. L De Vries. Published by Stratus, Poland, on behalf of Mushroom Model Publications, 3 Gloucester Close, Petersfi eld, Hants GU32 3AX, UK (www.mmpbooks.biz). 2016. 44pp. Illustrated. £19. ISBN 978-83-63678-58-6.

Produced for aeromodellers, a compilation of detailed colour diagrams recording the aircraft markings used on the famous Lockheed fi ghter by various air forces around the world.

Messerschmitt BF 109 in Romania. T L Morosanu and D Melinte. Published by Stratus, Poland, on behalf of Mushroom Model Publications, 3 Gloucester Close, Petersfi eld, Hants GU32 3AX, UK (www.mmpbooks.biz). 2016. 45pp. Illustrated. £19. ISBN 978-83-65281-05-0.

Produced for aeromodellers, a compilation of detailed colour diagrams recording the aircraft markings used on the Messerschmitt Bf109E/Bf109G and their variants as operated by the Aeronautica Regala Romana during WW2.

AVIATION MEDICINE

Air Travel and Transportation of Patients: a guide for physicians

– Third edition. Edited by M Klokker and U Taudorf. Grafi sk Werk Praesto, Denmark. 2014. Distributed by Academic Books, Norre Alle 20, DK-2200 Copenhagen N (E [email protected]). 128pp. Illustrated. ISBN 978-87-997292-3-4.

A well-illustrated guide to the requirements and practical operational procedures/considerations of transporting people with acute and chronic diseases and disabled passengers by aircraft.

AVIONICS AND SYSTEMS

Principles of Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging: a System Simulation Approach. K-S Chen. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL, 33487-2742, USA. 2016. Distributed by Taylor & Francis Group, 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon OX14 4RN, UK. 203pp. Illustrated. £102. [20% discount available to RAeS members via www.crcpress.com using AKQ07 promotion code]. ISBN 978-1-4665-9314-5.

HISTORICAL

Bloody Paralyser: the Giant Handley Page Bombers of the First World War. R Langham. Fonthill Media Limited, Millview House, Toadsmoor Road, Stroud GL5 2TB, UK. 2016. 208pp. Illustrated. £20. ISBN 978-1-78155-080-9.

Spitfi re in Sweden. M Forslund. Mikael Forslund Produktion AB, Falum, Sweden. 2016. Distributed by Mushroom Model Publications, 3 Gloucester Close, Petersfi eld, Hants, GU32 3AX, UK (www.mmpbooks.biz). 208pp. Illustrated. £40. ISBN 978-91-977677-8-1.

A well-illustrated pictorial history of the

operations of the Spitfi re over Sweden during WW2 and, in particular, the post-war Flygvapnet operations of the S 31 Supermarine Spitfi re MkXIX Type 390 used for reconnaissance.

1942 – Farnborough at War: French Test Pilot at the Royal Aircraft Establishment during the Second World War. M Claisse. Elvetham Publications, Fleet. 2010. 12pp. Illustrated. ISBN 978-0-9553268-9-9.

Originally published in Icare No 41 Spring-Summer 1967, the author recalls his wartime years spent at RAE Farnborough during 1942-1943 and his recollections of Engine Flight and Aerodynamics Flight and the various aircraft types they tested.

LIGHTER-THAN-AIR

Lighter Than Air: the Life and Times of Wing Commander N F Usborne RN, Pioneer of Naval Aviation. G Warner. Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Books, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, S Yorkshire S70 2AS, UK. 2016. 310pp. Illustrated. £25. ISBN 978-1-47382-902-2.

Howden Airship Station 1915-1930. T Asquith and K Deacon. Howden Civic Society. 2006. 53pp. Illustrated.

A concise pictorial history of the Yorkshire airship station which after its WW1 operations was to serve as the base for the R-33, R-34, R-38, R-80 and R-100 airships.

PROPULSION

Gas Turbine Propulsion. D P Mishra. MV Learning, 3 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8LU, UK. 2016. 355pp. Illustrated. £22.50. ISBN 978-81-309-2752-7.

SERVICE AVIATION

Churchill’s War Against the Zeppelin 1914-1918: Men,

Machines and Tactics. L Bennett. Helion & Company Limited, 26 Willow Road, Solihull B91 1UE, UK. 2015. Distributed by Casemate, 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, OX1 2EW, UK. 406pp. Illustrated. £29.95. ISBN 978-1-909982-84-0.

The Way of the Eagle. C J Biddle. Casemate Publishers, 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW, UK. 2016. 283pp. Illustrated. £19.95. ISBN 978-1-61200-390-0.

Originally published in 1919 and based on the author’s detailed letters to his family, the revealing diary of an American pilot who enlisted in April 1917 with the French Foreign Legion – Aviation Section and fl ew as a volunteer over the Western Front, initially for the French in Escadrille 73. Biddle then fl ew for the American 103rd Aero Squadron (the Lafayette Escadrille) and fi nally for the 13th Aero Squadron AEF and 4th Pursuit Group (which he commanded).

Sixty Squadron RAF: a History of the Squadron from its Formation. A J L Scott. Casemate Publishers, 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW, UK. 2016. 158pp. Illustrated. £19.95. ISBN 978-1-61200-384-9.

Originally published in 1920, a detailed contemporary account of the air operations of 60 Squadron during WW1 – Harold Balfour, Albert Ball, W A ‘Billy’ Bishop and T B McCudden among the fi ghter pilots featured – the book concluding with detailed appendices recording the squadron’s serving offi cers, casualties and combat claims and a brief review of the squadron’s subsequent history by D W Warne.

Luftwaffe in Colour: the Victory Years 1939-1942. C Cony and J-L Roba. Casemate Publishers, 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW, UK. 2016. 160pp. Illustrated. £19.95. ISBN 978-1-61200-408-2.

A compilation of over 300 rare colour photographs – produced using the German Agfacolor process – portraying the men and aircraft of the Luftwaffe during the initial years of WW2.

From Sail to Wing: the Career of Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Bowhill. A Smith. 1994. 49pp.

The typescript of a concise biography of the

senior RAF commander during WW2 which was to be published in Cross and Cockade International Journal, Vol 25, (1), 1994.

STRUCTURES AND MATERIALS

Composite Materials and Structural Analysis. N G R Iyengar. MV Learning, 3 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8LU, UK. 2016. 300pp. Illustrated. £21.95. ISBN 978-81-309-2808-1.

UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES

Unmanned Systems of World Wars I and II. H R Everett. The MIT Press, Suite 2, 1 Duchess Street, London W1W 6AN, UK. 2015. 757pp. Illustrated. £54.95. ISBN 978-0-262-02922-3.

Smart Autonomous Aircraft: Flight Control and Planning for UAV. Y B Sebbane. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL, 33487-2742, USA. 2016. Distributed by Taylor & Francis Group, 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon OX14 4RN, UK. 422pp. £76.99. [20% discount available to RAeS members via www.crcpress.com using AKQ07 promotion code]. ISBN 978-1-4822-9915-1.

BOOKS

For further information contact the National Aerospace Library.T +44 (0)1252 701038 or 701060E [email protected]

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Society News


AS OF TODAY, ROLLS-ROYCE COLLECTS AND ANALYSES 30 TERABYTES OF ENGINE DATA PER YEAR, AND IS ALSO A LEADER IN HIGH POWER COMPUTING

A career retrospective and the technology of tomorrow

The 52nd annual Sir Henry Royce Lecture on 16 June celebrated the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Royal Aeronautical Society and promoted the shared innovative aerospace history of Rolls-Royce and the Society while stimulating ideas for future advancements.

The lecture was held at the Rolls-Royce Learning and Career Development Centre in Derby on Thursday 16 June and was attended by senior members of Rolls-Royce and the Royal Aeronautical Society, including Simon Luxmoore, RAeS Chief Executive, and Chris Barkey, Rolls-Royce Group Director of Engineering and Technology.

Colin Smith CBE HonFRAeS, Rolls-Royce Group President and President of the RAeS Derby Branch, presented this year’s lecture on the theme of ‘A career retrospective and the technology of tomorrow’.

Colin Smith joined Rolls-Royce in 1974 as an undergraduate apprentice. Over the course of his career he has worked on a variety of projects in a number of locations, starting at Leavesden, a location which, interestingly, is now the home of Warner Bros Harry Potter studios.

Colin Smith progressed to become the President of Rolls-Royce Group and was awarded a CBE in 2012 for his services to British industry. He is also one of very few Honorary Fellows, the Society’s highest distinction for aerospace achievement awarded only to the most outstanding contributors to aerospace.

Colin’s career has spanned a period of tremendous growth for Rolls-Royce: one great example of this is Rolls-Royce’s growth in the civil wide-body engine market. In 1994 Rolls-Royce had less than 10% share of the market, however, by 2020 it will have a 50% market share and still growing.

Colin refl ected on this year marking 75 years since Britain entered the jet age with the Gloster E28 powered by the Whittle engine in 1941: this led directly to Rolls-Royce producing the Welland engine for the UK’s fi rst operational jet fi ghter, the Gloster Meteor, in 1943.

Colin explained how Rolls-Royce constantly strives to improve engine effi ciency, fl ight operations and reliability for its customers. Today’s modern Rolls-Royce turbofan engines are now 60% more effi cient than those fi rst-generation turbojets in 1941 while also generating 50 times more thrust. Today’s engines are also 80% more reliable than they were only ten years ago, driven by a variety of factors, including improvements in digital and engine

health monitoring capabilities. Colin noted that Rolls-Royce continues to develop its capabilities further in these arenas to improve engine operational data analysis and to enable airlines to improve their operational performance, helping increase fuel effi ciency.

As of today, Rolls-Royce collects and analyses 30 Terabytes of engine data per year, and is also a leader in high-power computing. Colin showed a demonstration of a sophisticated fan-blade separation computer simulation. The simulation was based on a 40 million node model and was designed to replicate real engine test results of a fan blade-off test to improve understanding of the blade behaviour under test.

Colin gave also his view of greener aviation and how Rolls-Royce contributions and technology developments are vital for a more sustainable aerospace future. Rolls-Royce has made huge improvements in the environmental sustainability of its engines and is continuing to track favourably towards the ACARE targets to reduce CO2 emissions by 30% from 2000 to 2050, NOx by 75% and noise by 45db over the same period.

Looking to the future, Colin described the Rolls-Royce vision for new core engine architectures called Advance and UltraFan, the former of which could be ready for service in ten years. Colin also shared a few of the main enabling technologies for the UltraFan, such as nickel-based super alloys, ceramic matrix composites, and carbon titanium fan blades. Colin also explained how Rolls-Royce investments contribute to the UK economy accounting for 2% of UK goods exports, greater than 0.6% of GDP, and is a key part of the UK civil aviation industry that supports 230,000 jobs across the UK.

In the varied Q&A which followed the lecture, Colin’s advice to the younger members of the audience was that being a good engineer is all about being able to work with and alongside other people, commenting that: “Engineering is so complex that one person can’t hold all the information in their head”, thus indicating the importance and infl uence of teamwork on success. He also mentioned the new engineering campus planned for Derby’s Rolls-Royce site which will co-locate many more employees and help people work together and share ideas more effectively.

Simon Luxmoore gave a vote of thanks at the end of the lecture, noting Colin’s great contribution to the aerospace industry, mentioning a particular example which was during the Iceland volcanic ash incident in 2010. Colin especially was able to facilitate negotiations with various key stakeholders. Simon praised Colin’s commitment to education, knowledge and fl exibility and his inspirational leadership to the industry.

52nd DERBY BRANCH SIR HENRY ROYCE LECTURE

The Royal Aeronautical Society produces a range of high quality merchandise at affordable prices. As it is our 150th Anniversary we have released a selection of limited edition products. There is something to suit all tastes, classic or contemporary.

150th Anniversary Merchandise and Christmas Gifts

CHRISTMAS IS HERE!

Send out the perfect seasonal greetings this holiday and choose from our selection of Festive Cards. Whether it is for family or friends there is something to suit all tastes.

To place your order, please call +44 (0)20 7670 4300 or visit our online shop on Amazon

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Society News


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Stepping up to Management: Young Person’s Conference 2016Wednesday 2 September saw some of the future stars and innovators of the British aerospace industry descend on Hamilton Place for the Young Person’s annual conference. The prestigious event was attended by a record 147 young aerospace professionals all eager to partake in a full day of workshops and talks.

The theme for the day was of professional and personal development, a welcome change from the usual heavily technical conferences. The day was to be split into various talks and workshops with a focus on networking in the various breaks throughout the day.

Jenny Body elegantly opened proceedings, a standard which was to be maintained throughout the day by all involved.

Speakers were invited from across the industry to share their stories and experiences with the young delegates. Senior speakers from large organisations, such as Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo Helicopters, gave a range of talks from managing and leading a team, to the mysterious world of fi nance within an aerospace organisation.

There were also a number of non-industry themes; a number of workshops ranging from confi dence in the workplace to tackling presentations, and also a fascinating psychologically-based talk on empowerment. The day concluded with two career stories, leaving the young delegates truly inspired for moving forward in their careers.

A special thank you goes to the sponsor of the event, Willis Lease Finance Corporation, who enabled the day to be such a success. Also to all the speakers who gave up their time.

Finally, a thank you to all the attendees whom the Young Person’s Committee would love to welcome back to their future events, including next year’s conference.

Kathryn Law and Daniel McKenna On behalf of the RAeS Young Persons Committee

YOUNG PERSON’S CONFERENCE

Your opportunity to help guide the Society?The Society would like to hear from members who are interested in standing for the Council in the 2017 elections to be held next spring. Only by having a good number of candidates from all sectors of the aviation and aerospace community can the Council benefi t from a variety of backgrounds and experience.

As members will be aware, under the Society’s new governance arrangements approved in late 2012, the democratically elected Council now concentrates on the outward facing aspects of the Society’s global activities. Indeed, as the Society becomes ever more global, it is critically important that our offerings to members, to Corporate Partners and especially to the public – indeed the whole of the aerospace sector that we serve – are of the highest quality. To lead output of the highest quality we need members of Council from every part of the aeronautical community and this is where you come in.

As such, please give serious thought to whether you could serve the Society in this most important role. If you are interested, or require further information, please visit our website at www.aerosociety.com/councilelection or contact Saadiya Ogeer, the Society’s Governance and Compliance Manager, on +44 (0)20 7670 4311 or [email protected].

Please note that all nominations must be submitted no later than 31 January 2017.

COUNCIL NOMINATIONS 2017

Heritage Awards Scheme – CorrectionProposers bidding for Society funding for a Heritage Awards Plaque should submit their nomination by 31 March each year, making clear that they are seeking Society funding (not 1 March as stated in the article in November’s edition of AEROSPACE).

Richard Smith of Leonardo Helicopters addressing the Young Person’s Conference delegates.

DECEMBER 2016 51i fFind us on Twitter Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

Over 12,500 images from the National Aerospace Library archives can now be viewed via the website: www.aerosociety.com/printsandposters alongside over 440 vintage colour aviation posters/magazine covers/air show programmes/airline timetables/decorative book covers/ballooning lithographs, etc from the Library’s archives, where reproductions of them can be ordered as posters or prints and a wide range of giftware items including mouse mats, mugs, coasters and, if you fancy a challenge, as jigsaw puzzles (available in 300, 400 or 1,000-piece versions).

The website has been produced in collaboration with the Mary Evans Picture Library (www.maryevans.com) through whom these images can be licensed for reproduction in books, magazines, advertising and other media (E [email protected]).

MerchandiseNATIONAL AEROSPACE LIBRARY

Above: 400-piece jigsaw of the balloon ascent made by Jacques Alexander César Charles and Monsieur Ainé Robert on 1 December 1783.Right: Assembled at Friedrichshafen during 1932-1936, the Zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg’s hull was composed of a ring structure of duralumin girders and bracing wires. Just one of the 12,500+ images available from the NAL’s archive. RAeS (NAL).

NEW MODEL GOES ON DISPLAY AT NALOn 9 June a new addition to the hanging display of model aircraft which can be viewed at the National Aerospace Library was contributed by Martin Dilly and Peter Jellis of the British Model Flying Association (BMFA).

Weighing just 810g with a striking wingspan of 2.1 metres, this advanced fl ying model aircraft, Silhouette 2, is a Free Flight Class F1C Engine-Assisted Glider – designed by Stafford Screen – which was fl own on several British teams in European and World Championship teams.

Powered by a US-produced Nelson 15 2.5cm2 glow-plug engine, developing 1.0bhp, turning a folding carbon-bladed propeller at 30,000rpm and limited to just fi ve seconds running time, a clockwork timer, based on a Soviet grenade fuse mechanism, operates an auto-rudder, variable tailplane and wing incidence, engine cut-out and fi nally the dethermaliser. Shortly after engine cut-out at the top of the vertical climb the timer pulls the tailplane down to a positive angle of incidence for a short time, putting the aircraft into its glide confi guration via a quarter bunt, before re-trimming it into its glide setting.

To minimise the risk of wing fl utter the structure uses a carbon spar and is skinned with 0.03mm

hard aluminium vacuum-bonded onto 1.4mm balsa. The tail boom is a uni-directional carbon laminate with 0.03mm aluminium bonded on the outside.

To design an aircraft that can climb as high as possible on limited power, and then can convert automatically to a slow-fl ying glider, soaring in thermal up-currents, is a challenge possibly unique in aviation.

The fl ying model which has been loaned to the National Aerospace Library by the BMFA is prominently displayed at the entrance to the Library and complements the Library’s striking hanging display of the historic Wakefi eld model aircraft series (described in The Aerospace Professional October 2012).

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DiaryEVENTS

5 DecemberSDSR – One Year OnAir Power Group Conference

6 DecemberWilbur and Orville Wright Lecture: Growing the Future RAFACM Sir Stephen Hillier, Chief of the Air Staff, Royal Air ForceNamed Lecture

26 JanuaryAir Law Group half-day Seminar

30 JanuaryRAF Harrier in the Cold WarGp Capt John ‘Jock’ HeronHistorical Group Lecture

9 FebruaryFlight Testing the AW159 Wildcat Helicopter at SeaMark Burnand, Deputy Chief Test Pilot, Leonardo Helicopters UKFlight Test Group Lecture

16 FebruaryHumanitarian Aerospace – A New Civil-Military InterfaceConference

16 FebruaryUAVs for Humanitarian AidDaniel Ronen, Co-Founder, UAVAidUAS Group/IMechE Lecture

24-25 AprilThe Architecture of Air Travel – Designing for Human BehaviourAir Transport Group Conference

9 MayStaying Alert: Managing Fatigue in MaintenanceHuman Factors Group ConferenceCranfi eld University

11 MayRAeS AGM and Annual Banquet

13-14 JuneBenchmarking for Improving Flight SimulationFlight Simulation Group Conference

5 JulyAerospace Golf DayFrilford Heath, Oxfordshire

5-6 JulySafe Operations in a Complex Onshore Environment: Technology Friend or FoeRotorcraft Group Conference

All lectures start at 18.00hrs unless otherwise stated. Conference proceedings are available at www.aerosociety.com/news/proceedings

www.aerosociety/events www.aerosociety/events

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7 FebruaryUAS Maritime OperationsUAS Group Conference

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LECTURES

Refreshments from 5pm. Lecture 5.15pm. Visitors please register at least four days in advance (name and car registration required) E [email protected] December — Flight testing the E-Go. Keith Dennison.10 January — A new lease of life for the Gazelle AH Mk1. Flt Lt Stu Walker, Andrew Duffy and Phillip Loughlin.7 February — The Queen Elizabeth carriers: the future fl agships of the UK. Chris Coles.21 February — Current fl ight test activities at 41 Squadron.

BRISTOLPugsley Lecture Theatre, Bristol University Faculty of Engineering, Queen’s Building, University Walk Bristol. 6.30pm. E [email protected] December — Thunderbolts and lightning: are they really frightening? Rhys Phillips, Airbus Group Innovations.

BROUGHCottingham Parks Golf and Country Club. 7.30pm. Ben Groves, T +44 (0)1482 663938.14 December — Going out with a bang. Simon Eden, Principal Reliability & Maintainability Engineer, Martin-Baker Aircraft. Joint lecture with IMechE and IET. Robert Blackburn Building, Hull University. 7pm.

CAMBRIDGELecture Theatre ‘0’, Cambridge University Engineering Department, Trumpington Street, Cambridge. 7.30pm. Jin-Hyun Yu, T +44 (0)1223 373129.Trumpington Street, Cambridge.8 December — From fl ying

ADELAIDEBuilding MM1-05, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Boulevard, Mawson Lakes, SA. 5.30pm.6 December — End of Year Dinner and Named Lecture.

BAY OF PLENTYClassic Flyers, 9 Jean Batten Drive, Mt Maunganui. 5pm.2 December — Champagne, strawberries and Christmas nibbles. Aviation medicine. Dr Calum Young.

BEDFORDARA Social Club, Manton Lane, Bedford. 7pm. Marylyn Wood, T +44 (0)1933 353517.14 December — Blue Bear Systems Research. Harshad Raje.11 January — Automated vehicles in shared spaces. Rebecca Advani, Transport Systems Catapult. Joint lecture with ICE.8 February — Lockheed Martin Ampthill: Space Rider. Alex Godfrey, Lockheed Martin UK.

BIRMINGHAM, WOLVERHAMPTON AND COSFORDNational Cold War Museum, RAF Museum Cosford, Shifnal, Shropshire. 7pm. Chris Hughes, T +44 (0)1902 844523.15 December — The future of civilian unmanned air systems. Philip Tarry, Director, Halo Aerial Imaging.19 January — The Spitfi re and Seafi re. Rod Dean.16 February — Flight testing the Bristol 188 stainless steel research aircraft. John Thorpe.

BOSCOMBE DOWNLecture Theatre, MoD Boscombe Down.

dreadnought to dogfi ghter. Greg Baughen.12 January — Martin-Baker ejector seats. James Pearse.2 February — Sir Arthur Marshall Lecture. The fl ying exploits of Sir Arthur Marshall. Terry Holloway.

CARDIFF7pm. E [email protected] January — Battle for Malta. Ron Powell.15 February — Engine power – where will it come from in the future? Conrad Banks. Swansea University.

CHESTERRoom 017 Beswick Building, University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester. 7.30pm. Keith Housely, T +44 (0)151 348 4480.11 January — Vernon Clarkson Lecture. The Story of aviation at Broughton/Hawarden. Aldon Ferguson.8 February — Recent developments in Martin-Baker ejection seats. Philip Rowles, Chief Engineer, Martin-Baker Aircraft. Room 011 Binks Building, University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester.

CHRISTCHURCHCobham Lecture Theatre, Bournemouth University. 7.30pm. Roger Starling, E [email protected] December — 150 years of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Air Cdre Bill Tyack, RAeS Past President.26 January — British test pilots – from the FAST archives. Ashley Morgan, FAST Archivist.23 February — The role of a Rolls-Royce test pilot. Phill O’Dell, Chief Test Pilot, Rolls-Royce.

A Martin-Baker US-16E high-altitude test from its Gloster Meteor test aircraft WA638 in preparation for its service in the F-35. Martin-Baker ejection seats will be discussed at Brough on 14 December; Cambridge on 12 January and Chester on 8 February. Martin-Baker.

53DECEMBER 2016i fFind us on Twitter Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

Scottish Ambulance Service Air Ambulance G-SASA waiting at Fort William West End car park. Andrew Sayers will discuss air ambulance operations in the Scottish Highlands and Islands at Cranwell on 12 December. Kent Air Ambulance will be discussed by Lucy Waterson at Medway on 18 January. J M Briscoe.

COVENTRYLecture Theatre ECG26, Engineering & Computing Building, Coventry University, Coventry. 7.30pm. Janet Owen, T +44 (0)2476 464079.7 December — Red Bull Air Racing. Dr Mike Bromfi eld, Coventry University and Nigel Lamb, Team Breitling pilot.18 January — Airship development – the Airlander project. Chris Daniel, Head of Partnership and Communications, Hybrid Air Vehicles.16 February — Meggitt Lecture and Dinner. Holiday Inn Coventry South, London Road, Ryton on Dunsmore.

CRANFIELDVincent Auditorium, Vincent Building 52a, Cranfi eld University. 6pm.8 December — The theory and the reality of the tiltrotor convertiplane. Andrea D’Andrea, Leonardo Helicopters.

CRANWELLDaedalus Offi cers’ Mess, RAF Cranwell. 7.30pm.12 December — Air ambulance. Andrew Sayers.

DERBYNightingale Hall, Moor Lane, Derby. 5.30pm. Chris Sheaf, T +44 (0)1332 269368.18 January — Bush fl ying. Paul Catanach, bush pilot.February — The development and potential of the Skylon spaceplane and its Sabre engines. Mark Thomas, CEO, Reaction Engines.

FARNBOROUGHBAE Systems Park Centre, Farnborough Aerospace Centre. 7.30pm. Dr Mike Philpot, T +44 (0)1252 614618.6 December — Cody Lecture. Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown – a retrospective. Paul Beaver, author and broadcaster.17 January — VC10 military operations. Paul Morris, Military Air and Information, BAE Systems.14 February — Templer Lecture. Drone technology: the next revolution in civil aviation? Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, formerly ASTRAEA Programme Director, BAE Systems. 7pm.

GATWICKCAA, Aviation House, Gatwick Airport South. 6.30pm. Don Bates, T +44 (0)20 8654 1150.14 December — Aviation security at Gatwick. Inspector Kevin Swinney, Gatwick Police. Joint lecture with CILT.11 January — Sir Peter

Masefi eld Lecture. The art of communication and the role of Airbus connecting society. James Hinds, Director, Strategy Development, Space Systems, Airbus Defence and Space.

GLOUCESTER AND CHELTENHAMSafran Landing Systems, Restaurant Conference Room, off Down Hatherley Lane. 7.30pm. Peter Smith, T +44 (0)1452 857205.20 December — Dornier 17Z from the sea. Darren Priday, RAF Museum Cosford.17 January — RAF search and rescue helicopters. Wg Cdr Peter Chadwick.21 February — A pilot’s life in the bush. Capt Bryan Pill, Mission Aviation Fellowship.

HAMBURGHochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften (HAW), Hörsaal 01.12, Berliner Tor 5 (Neubau), 20099 Hamburg. 6pm. Richard Sanderson, T +49 (0)4167 92012.26 January — Flugerprobung A350. Martin Scheuermann, Experimental Test Pilot, Airbus.Joint lecture with DGLR, VDI and HAW.

HATFIELDLindop Building, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfi eld. 7pm. Contact Maurice James, T +44 (0)7958 775 441.14 December — Secret operations of the Wooden Wonder. Paul Beaver.18 January — Single-engined

Nigel Randall, E [email protected] January — The Sabre and Skyline projects. Dr Helen Webber, Reaction Engines’ Project Lead for the Advanced Nozzle Programme.

PALMERSTON NORTHMassey School of Aviation, Milson, Palmerston North, New Zealand. 7pm.13 December — Lecture and Christmas function.

PRESTONPersonnel and Conference Centre, BAE Systems, Warton. 7.30pm. Alan Matthews, T +44 (0)1995 61470.7 December — 100 years of Brough. Steve Blee/John Newton, BAE Systems Brough.11 January — Taranis aerodynamics. Chris Lee, BAE Systems.8 February — Branch AGM followed by Nimrod operations. Richie Fennel, BAE Systems.

PRESTWICKThe Aviator Suite, 1st Floor, Terminal Building, Prestwick Airport. 7.30pm. John Wragg, T +44 (0)1655 750270.12 December — Aboard HMS Ark Royal IV. Dugald Cameron.16 January — RJ146 water bomber. Mike West.13 February — Boeing E-3 AWACS.

QUEENSLANDVictoria Barracks, Petrie Terrace, Brisbane. 5.30pm.16 December — End of Year Drinks.

SOLENTPhysics D Lecture Theatre, University of Southampton. 7pm. Chris Taylor, T +44 (0)1489 445627.5 December — Changing the economies of space: SSTL’s approach to low-cost satellite propulsion. Oli Lane, Propulsion Team Leader, Surrey Satellite Technology Services.

SOUTHENDThe Royal Naval Association, 79 East Street, Southend-on-Sea. 8pm. Sean Corr, T +44 (0)20 7929 3400.13 December — The Percival Prentice – neither fi sh nor fowl. Terry Dann, pilot and Branch member.14 January — 60th anniversary lunch. La Romantica, 9 High Street, Rayleigh.14 February — The BAe146/RJ – Britain’s last airliner. Stephen Skinner, aviation author and historian.

Atlantic crossing. Dr Peter Orton.

HEATHROWCommunity Learning Centre, British Airways Waterside, Harmondsworth. 6.15pm. For security passes please contact Dr Ana Pedraz, E [email protected] or T +44 (0)7936 392799.8 December — Development of aircraft simulation. Capt. Hugh Dibley, Synthetic Flight Instructor on A320/330/340.12 January — RAeS Schools Build-a-Plane Project. Oliver Vass.9 February — Airspace sovereignty. Prof Keith Hayward.

LOUGHBOROUGHRoom U020, Brockington Building, Loughborough University. 7.30pm. Colin Moss, T +44 (0)1509 239962.6 December — The planning and execution of Britain’s fi rst intercontinental air service: Imperial Airways between UK and South Africa 1932-1939. Mike Hirst, Branch Committee Member.17 January — Transatlantic adventure. Eddie McCallum, Microlight Pilot.7 February — The challenges of maintaining Highland and Island Airport Services (HIAL). Andrew Rackham. Joint lecture with Loughborough University Velocity Society.21 February — 3D printing and digital technology. Kevin Smith, Global Applications Director, Voxeljet and Steve

Ashworth, Technical Director, Aeromet International PLC.

MANCHESTERRoom D7, Renold Building, University of Manchester. 7pm. Bryan Cowin, T +44 (0)161 799 8979.7 December — Graphene. Prof Costas Soutis, Manchester University.16 January — Consolidation of the UK aircraft industry. Paul Hodgson, Chief Designer (Retd), BAE Systems. Joint lecture with TAS. Concorde Hangar, Aircraft Viewing area, Manchester Airport. 8pm.15 February — The day the skies went black. Peter Hampson, Airport Solutions. Room B2 Newton Building, Salford University.

MEDWAYStaff Restaurant, BAE Systems, Marconi Way, Rochester. 7pm. Robin Heaps, T +44 (0)1634 377973.14 December — 30 years of bother on the hover. Brian Laverick Smith.18 January — Kent Air Ambulance. Lucy Waterson.

MUNICHTUM, Campus Garching, Hörsaal MW 1801. 5.30pm.1 December — Material tailoring for lightweight and morphing structures, the shape of things to come. Prof Paul Weaver, University of Bristol.

OXFORDMagdalen Centre, Oxford Science Park, Oxford. 7pm.

Diary


Afterburner

Phoenix P5 Cork MkII, N87, inside the hangar at Brough. Steve Blee and John Newton will discuss 100 years of Brough at Preston on 7 December. RAeS (NAL).

STEVENAGEFusion Restaurant, Airbus Defence and Space, Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage. 5.30pm. RSVP Matt Cappell, E [email protected] December — Rise of the bomber. Greg Baughen, military aviation historian.11 January — Flying A380. Kevin Briggs.

SWINDONThe Montgomery Theatre, The Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Joint Services Command Staff College, Shrivenham. 7.30pm. New attendees must provide details of the vehicle they will be using not later than fi ve days before the event. Photo ID will be required at the gate (Driving Licence/Passport). Advise attendance preferably via email to [email protected] or Branch Secretary Colin Irvin, T +44 (0)7740 136609.7 December — The Clean Sky. Preparing for the next generation of civil aircraft. Mark Howard, Airbus.4 January — 100 years of air accident investigation. Peter Coombs, AAIB.1 February — Reminiscence of a Concorde test pilot. Alan Smith.

IT’S GREAT TO SEE YOUNG PEOPLE LEARNING ABOUT ENGINEERING IN A FUN AND ENGAGING WAY

First place winners, Sandringham School, with their airship gondola and RAeS President, Professor Chris Atkin.

SYDNEY6 December — Hot Aeros in the Pub. 3 Wise Monkeys Pub, 555 George Street.

TOULOUSESymposium Room, B01, Airbus HQ/SAS, 1 rond point Maurice Bellonte, 31707 Blagnac. 6pm. Contact: [email protected] for a security pass.13 December — The Hybrid Air Vehicles Airlander. Christopher Daniels, Head of Partnerships and Communications, Airlander Project, Hybrid Air Vehicles.24 January — 25th Gordon Corps Lecture. Safety aspects of the space shuttle. Prof Claude Nicollier, ESA astronaut.14 February — Rolls-Royce Mini-Lecture Competition followed by Aero-engines at Rolls-Royce: a proud history and exciting future. Prof Ric Parker.

WASHINGTON DCTransportation Security Administration Systems Integration Facility. 9am.16 December — Tour of the Transportation Security Administration Systems Integration Facility (TSIF).

WEYBRIDGEBrooklands Museum, Weybridge. 6.45pm. Ken Davies, T +44 (0)1483 531529.18 January — Title TBC.1 February — Maneouvrable spacecraft. John Gough, former aerodynamicist, HS Kingston.

YEOVILDallas Conference Room 1A, Leonardo Helicopters, Yeovil. 6pm. David Mccallum, E [email protected] December — Risk, the heart and the air pilot. Prof Michael Joy.19 January — The Westland Future Projects Group – a personal recollection. Dr Ron Smith.16 February — The Reggie Brie Awards. Young members’ lecture competition.

YEOVILTONNuffi eld Sports Pavillion, RNAS Yeovilton. 6pm.13 December — FAA Yeovilton Christmas Quiz Night.

You are probably aware that the Royal Aeronautical Society has been celebrating its 150th Anniversary throughout 2016. The Wright brothers hadn’t even been born when the RAeS was founded in 1866, so what were these early aviation pioneers using? Balloons and airships of course!

In honour of this age-old method of fl ight, the RAeS Stevenage Branch, in partnership with Airbus, MBDA and SETPOINT Hertfordshire, created the ‘Airship Challenge’, which was held on 21 October in the MBDA Stevenage Quadrangle to support STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education in our local community.

Stevenage Branch Vice President, Airbus Stevenage Site Director, Andy Stroomer FRAeS, provided teams with a seminar on fl ight from its earliest days to the satellites, rockets and rovers being worked on today.

After being given an insight into fl ight, seven local school teams designed and built a gondola, the part that hangs under an airship carrying people and cargo, that had to attach to a helium-fi lled weather balloon.

Keen Year 10 pupils had to balance teamwork, design trade-offs and speed to complete the challenge, and then compete against each other over the ‘Cargo Course’ where time (and gravity) was against them.

After a number of successful, and some less than successful, attempts of navigating their airships around our course, scores were in:3rd Place: Thomas Alleyne Academy (Stevenage)2nd Place: Sandringham School – Team 1 (St Albans)1st Place: Sandringham School – Team 2

There was also an award for the group with the best ‘Team Spirit’ through working together and presenting the best case to judges. This was won by The Priory School (Hitchin).

Judge for the day and MBDA UK General Manager, Bryony Smith, commented:

“It’s great to see young people learning about engineering in a fun and engaging way. Having engineers help teach engineering principals in a relatable environment can help bring it to life. ‘Team Spirit’ is especially important to acknowledge as engineering is not just about technology, it’s also about people. Having people channel their passion and enthusiasm by collaborating together can help bring about great innovations in the future.”

The RAeS Stevenage Branch would like to thank MBDA, Airbus and SETPOINT for their sponsorship, as well as Ben Jutsum and the graduates and apprentices team for organising the event.

RAeS STEVENAGE BRANCH AIRSHIP CHALLENGE www.aerosociety.com/150

55

NEW PARTNERS EVENTSPlease note: attendance at Corporate Partner Briefi ngs is strictly exclusive to staff of RAeS Corporate Partners.

Thursday 19 January 2017 / LondonCorporate Partner Briefi ngAM Richard Garwood CB CBE DFC MA RAF, Director General, Defence Safety Authority

Wednesday 8 February 2017 / LondonDelivering ISR Capabilities and Services Worldwide Corporate Partner Briefi ng by Matt Avison, ISR Sales Director, Thales UKSponsor:

Wednesday 22 March 2017 / LondonCorporate Partner Briefi ngColin Smith CBE HonFRAeS, Chair, Aerospace Growth Partnership (AGP)Sponsor:

Wednesday 5 April 2017 / LondonCorporate Partner Briefi ngNigel Stein, Chief Executive, GKN plc

www.aerosociety.com/eventsFor further information, please contact Gail WardE [email protected] or T +44 (0)1491 629912

The Royal Aeronautical Society would like to welcome the following Corporate Partners.

CONTINENTAL CARRIERSContinental House, 76-77 Kapashera, Bijwasan Road, New Delhi, 110037, IndiaE [email protected] www.continentalgroup.comContact Vaibhav Vohra, Managing Director

Continental Carriers Pvt Ltd (CCPL) is a supply chain management company which was one of the fi rst Indian IATA approved Forwarders & Customs Brokers. It has been in business for over 60 years, having been established in 1957.

The Company is an active member of ALN, FIATA, FFFAI, ACAAI and several Chambers of Commerce in India and abroad. CCPL is an ISO 9001-2008 accredited company and has a network of branches and sales offi ces in all major cities in the country, and a worldwide network of specialised business partners. Over the years, CCPL has been in the forefront of many innovations in Civil Aviation in the country. Continental was awarded the contract for Cargo handling of Delhi Airport from 1979-1985 is now the fi rst Indian company to start a Greenfi eld AFS in India with RA3 clearance.

FTE JEREZFlight Training Services, SL, Aeropuerto del Jerez de la Frontera, Base area la Parra, 11401 Cadiz, SpainW www.ftejerez.comContact Oscar Sordo, CEO

FTEJerez, formerly known as the British Aerospace Training College in Prestwick, Scotland, has its campus adjacent to the Jerez Airport in Southern Spain. The academy specialises in integrated airline pilot and ATC training and count top European and international airlines such as BA, Aer Lingus, Emirates, Flybe, BACF, easyJet, Norwegian, etc as clients. All training is conducted at Jerez with approximately 200 cadets accommodated on campus.

THE AIM OF THE CORPORATE PARTNER SCHEME IS TO BRING TOGETHER ORGANISATIONS TO PROMOTE BEST PRACTICE WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL AEROSPACE SECTOR

DECEMBER 2016

Corporate Partners


Contact:Simon LevyHead of Business DevelopmentE [email protected] +44 (0)20 7670 4346

AVIATION MANAGEMENT COLLEGENo 1 Jenderam Hilir, Dengkil, Selangor, 43700, MalaysiaE [email protected] www.kolej.edu.myContact Capt Ab Manan Mansor, Chief Executive

Aviation Management College (AMC) incorporated in 2007, conducts home-grown diploma programmes in aviation management, bachelor in airline and airport and MBA in aviation management, the latter two in collaboration with other universities. Licensed by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia, under the Act 555, AMC has produced more than 300 graduates who have secured jobs both locally and overseas. AMC, located in Metropolitan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in its own stand-alone campus, is known for its quality education that has propelled its graduates into jobs in the Middle East, Africa, UK and Singapore. AMC is poised to grow into university status that will enhance its ability to conduct more social science, engineering and TVET programmes, meeting the regional Asia-Pacifi c talent needs. AMC is willing to collaborate with other parties in the development of aviation products and services to increase its students’ research skills.

56

Elections


SOCIETY OFFICERSPresident: Prof Chris AtkinPresident-Elect: ACM Sir Stephen Dalton

BOARD CHAIRMEN

Learned Society Chairman: Ian MiddletonMembership Services Chairman:

Dr Alisdair WoodProfessional Standards Chairman:

Prof Jonathan Cooper

DIVISION PRESIDENTS

Australia: John VincentNew Zealand: John MaciIreePakistan: AM Salim ArshadSouth African: Dr Glen Snedden

Afterburner

Christopher BurwellSimon HarrisDavid HurfordWayne MorganSam QuigleyPhilip RobertsonRichard SimpsonOscar SordoNawal Taneja

Jeff Cole

David AllertonShuyang GuoAnisa HafejiMichael HamiltonAthol HarrisonAshvin JugnarainYong Qiu

Sankar Balasubramanian

Samuel Seaton

Edmund Acheson Yomi Adegbola Madeleine Alexander Thomas Andreou Dogus Aripinar Michael Atkins Ahmad Afi q Azman James Bairstow Alexander Barker Josselin Bequet Gonçal Berastegui Mathew Bestelink Michael Billington Simon Booth Alexandru Botu Simon Bridges Matthew Brookes Norma Brunetto Simone Bursich Asad Buttar Amy Caddick Deleratne Mudalige

Caldera Jonathan Cameron Dann Cascano Manousos Chairetis

FELLOWS Tapojoy Chatterjee Eric Chu Kurt Clement Daniel Cognolato Ross Colbourne Akinwande Cole Matthew Collinson Aidan Cookson Denise Corsel Nicholas Crisp Laura Cruz Garcia Nikhil Dakoju Jonathan Davies James De Beauvoir-

Tupper Lalitya Dhavala Roberto Dragonetti Luke Edwards Paul Ekwere Valentin Erb Nitin Farmah Edward Farnfi eld Nazareno Fazio David Firth Ashley Fisher Mark Fishwick Richard Fontana Oliver Ford Ben Fox Neil Fraser Jonathan Fuller Andrew Gall Luke Gallantree Enrique Garcia Bourne Adam Garner James Gee Avi Ginsburg Ian Gordon Steven Gordon Nathan Gosney Daniel Herrity Marion Hiriart Laura Hoang Johannes Hoenigl-

Decrinis Alex Horlock Matthew Humphrey Ryan Humphreys Sebastian Hunter Mutaz Ibrahim Radu Irimia Chinedu Iwundu Vikram Jadeja Tomasz Janiga Roshen Jaswantlal Carl Lorenzo Jenkins Edward Jinks Charles Jones Michael Jones Christopher Josifovski Karpaga Kannan

Krzysztof Kazmierczak Andrew Kellett Matthew Kennington Nqobile Khani Pax Knight Kim Kohn John Konnakkottu Thushithev Kumanan Hirantha Kumarasinghe Ryan Laird James Lamont Abrams Andy Lang Oliver Laslett Ronald Lau Junlong Lee Kin Lok Lee Gary Leung Daniel Llaneza Vazquez Ada (Cheuk Wai) Lo Adrian Lorent Benjamin Loth Michael Lovering Adil Loya Donald Lundie Jiaming Luo David Macmanus Tristan Maddick Abedalaziz Mady Minhal Mahmood Dalbir Makh Kasun Malwenna Divyesh Mandania Connor Mason Mohd Zohdi Mat Zali David Maw Ysatis Mcculloch Liam Mcmanus Ketan Mehta Evan Meyrick Achal Mittal Alistair Montgomery Chandrew Motee Kudzai Mutasa Didunoluwa Obilanade Milan Odedra Michael Ogbeta Simon O’Hara Mudiaga Otubu Richard Painter Hiten Parmar Rybeka Parsons Nheel Rashesh Patel Yusuf Patel Anson Pearson Stanton Pereira Petros Petrides Jamie Pettingill Pakawat Piriyapol Robert Powell Usman Qazi Md Risalat Rabbani

MEMBERS

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS

ASSOCIATES

COMPANIONS

WITH REGRET

Roy Allen MRAeS 86

Dr Alan James Benson FRAeS 87

David Capel Affi liate 81

Alan Geoffrey Foskett CEng MRAeS 88

John Alan Fuller CEng MRAeS 89

Royston George Walter Hathaway CEng MRAeS

93

Gordon G Jefferson CEng MRAeS 92

John Sutcliffe Jones CEng MRAeS 90

David James Pomfret CEng MRAeS 49

Dr Jane Risdall FRAeS 56

Professor Alan Simpson FREng CEng FRAeS 81

Dr Franklyn David Trevarthen FRAeS 79

Joseph Charles Wordsworth CEng MRAeS 90

The RAeS announces with regret the deaths of the following members:

Francesco Ragazzo Jose Ramirez Cuevas Dhan Rana Dinindu Ranatunga Ravindu Ranaweera Alistair Redman Lily Reif Gareth Roberts Gregory Roberts Benjamin Rodgers Álvaro Rojas Zamora Robert Ross

Jens Rucker Sean Rutter Daniel Sackey Ajmal Salam Gervasio Salerno Morgan Saminathan Mohit Sangwan Karys Saunders Robert Sawford Ekrem Selamet Jeevana Senarathne Shivprasad Shivprasad

57DECEMBER 2016i fFind us on Twitter Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

Nishma Shrestha Adam Simpson Natalie Simpson Gowrishanker Sivabala James Skinner Christopher Slattery James Smith Jose Soler Ribes Charles Stotler Emily Swinburne Gloria Taiwo Loo Tan Bernard Tashie-Lewis Graeme Taylor Lawrence Thain Kris Thomson Adrian Thomson Hayes Matthew Titman Iat Tong Paul Trouton Edward Turner Kieran Turner Ikeya Uria Quintana

Olle Van Zweden Sindhura Vijayaragavan Mahendran

Viswalingam Pramod Vithanage Vasilije Vladisavljevic Natasha Vracas Anthony Wanjala Michael Weisz Oliver Westbrook-

Netherton Siena Whiteside Sebastian Wiinblad-

Rasmussen Charith Johanne

Wijesinghe Matthew Wilson Hon Hoe Wong Michal Wrzachal Raybin Yu Jie Yuan Jiacheng Zeng

Joseph BrittonGeorge CannNatalie DobsonMichael DonnellySamuel GervaisVikram JadejaIlias KonstantinouPeter MacleodKrishnamurthy

RavichandarAndrew SalmonAdam SimpsonRaam Bharadwaajj

SureshCornell Williams

Andil AboubakariGarry BowerNgai Cheuk Yu

Torbjoern CunisMatthew DavidsonAengus DrennanSimon EddingsGuillermo Fernandez-

CerezoLara FlanaganBethan GirlingAlexander KingWo Kit LamAndrew LawrieAndrew LloydChristopher LockMichael LoweJames MacaulaySudeep MadenRafael MartinezCallum McbrydeMichael McintoshGourab MohantyDavid Owusu-NyameJames PembertonAlexander Place

Jack RichardsonMatan ShahakAlexandra ShawGlenn SmithJoseph UnderwoodPhilip WarrenEthan WesleyAdam WhiteRichard WittelsHau Kit YongMarko Zakarija

Callum McbrydeMichael McintoshBaran Sahan

E-ASSOCIATES

AFFILIATES

STUDENT AFFILIATES

PROFESSOR ALAN SIMPSONDipTech PhD DSc AFIMA CEng FRAeS FREng1935-2016

A fuller obituary for Alan may be found on the Society’s website at: aerosociety.com/News/Society-News/

Alan Simpson was born in Wolverhampton and left school at 15 to start an apprenticeship at Villiers. After National Service he continued his academic study at Wolverhampton College of Technology where he was awarded a DipTech(Eng) with fi rst class honours. This enabled him to enter The University of Bristol at postgraduate level in 1960 and, in 1963, Alan was awarded a PhD for his thesis titled ‘Oscillations of Catenaries and Systems of Overhead Transmission Lines’.

Alan was then appointed Lecturer in Aeronautical Engineering at Bristol, Reader in 1971 and to a Personal Chair in Aeroelasticity in 1985. In 1973 he was awarded the DSc degree for contributions to engineering and industrial dynamics. For the rest of his working life Alan produced a prolifi c amount of aeronautical research, working with universities and industries in the UK

and abroad. He served on several committees of the UK’s Aeronautical Research Council, chairing the Loads and Dynamics Sub-committee.

In 1986, Alan was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and in 1989 he started a three-year consultancy with the Royal Aircraft Establishment, undertaking research into modelling of helicopter rotor dynamics.

Alan Simpson leaves a legacy of successful research, with many mysteries of the interactions of solids and fl uids unveiled through rigorous mathematical modelling, and countless students who have been guided through the minefi elds of mechanics by his deep insights.

Above all, Alan Simpson was a man who enjoyed spending time with his family, his wife Sheila, his two children and four granddaughters. He died peacefully in Somerset on Wednesday 12 October and will be missed, greatly, by family, friends, colleagues and former students alike.Gareth Davies Padfi eld FREng FRAeS

On a recent visit to BAE Systems Military Air & Information at Warton, RAeS President, Prof Chris Atkin, far right, had the opportunity to present a Fellowship certifi cate to Martin Taylor, MD, Combat Air, BAE Systems.

News of membersDate for your diary6 December — Wilbur and Orville Wright Lecture: Growing the Future RAF. ACM Sir Stephen Hillier, CAS

of State. That might then trigger a judicial review. Appeals either way can be expected; so 2029 looks a pretty good bet for fi rst fl ight.

The biggest hurdle is likely to be air quality. Noise might also be a problem, certainly on approach where frequency and aerodynamic noise will affect more people. Air quality is trickier given the proximity of two motorways and the inevitability of increased road traffi c into Heathrow. This could yet be the legal showstopper. Air quality levels already exceed European regulations – and Brexit or not Brexit, I can’t see politicians agreeing to less restrictive levels. Mitigation via congestion charging might help; better (and cheaper) public transport links would be even better. Even with the proposed Crossrail spur the detailed connections into and within Central London are not ideal, especially from Euston.

The right choice in the end

Enough of damning with faint praise: the new Heathrow will have to deliver its promised extension on time and on cost. There is a good track record here. The airlines (and this really means the UK-based carriers) will need to increase feeder fl ights to the nations and English regions. This should follow naturally given the availability of an extra runway. The UK will need those new long haul fl ights to new destinations, and not just more slots for existing high-revenue services. The challenge of avoiding too much M25 disruption will be interesting – former Harrier pilots may be especially valued if the runway is ramped over the motorway.

Overall, the economic case for Heathrow just about carries the day, with all due respect to the folks affected by demolition and loss of community. I will not use the rhetoric of demonstrating that the UK is ‘open for business’ – good international connectivity is vital in any case and building on the Heathrow hub remains the best national option. So fair thee well the former Fairey airfi eld.

A last word on runways in the South East? In my dreams I suspect. The government has announced its ‘decision’ on the location of a new London runway; that seems so much less spectacular than revealing plans for a splendid new 21st century airport. This would be somewhere to the north of London, linked directly to major population centres by fast rail and a less congested road network – of course, Cublington, the fi rst proposal nearly 50 years ago. We can still dismiss out of hand the more easterly master plans: too many wild birds to shift and not best placed for a UK hub. Sorry Gatwick, good fi ght and still worth some investment in its own right.

I might also agree for once with Michael O’Leary that all three London region airports have a strong case for expansion – assuming post Brexit air traffi c growth rates do maintain the current projections. I’m not so sure that his view that market forces could determine charge levels. Indeed, I still tend to refl ect an older generation of left-wing thinking that large-scale national infrastructure development needs some degree of co-ordinated central direction. Private capitalisation per se is no problem and to be welcomed but, to my statist mentality, it would seem more rational to operate London airports as an integrated entity.

Not the ideal choice in the best of all possible worlds but …

But living with what we have, making a silk purse out of the higgledy piggledy development just off the M4 is what we have and must live with. If it is the best of a poor set of solutions, it has been clear as such for years. Of course, there will be legal challenges to come. A judicial review will have to be launched before the next round of planning consultations, or after the House of Commons vote this time next year. That at least should be a formality – a majority of MPs will vote for better connectivity with the national hub airport, a ring-fenced commitment we are told by the Secretary

The Last Word

London’s runways - into the fi nal act

Professor Keith HaywardFRAeS

COMMENTARY FROM

THE BIGGEST HURDLE IS LIKELY TO BE AIR QUALITY. NOISE MIGHT ALSO BE A PROBLEM.


www.aerosociety.com/events

Air Law Group

BREXIT AND THE LEGAL

IMPLICATIONS FOR AEROSPACE,

AVIATION AND SPACE

AIR LAW SEMINAR

LONDON / 26 JANUARY 2017

Sponsor

This Air Law Group Seminar will explore the risks, costs and opportunties for the aviation industry that arise from this monumental change of political direction for the UK.

Registration is open for this seminar.

www.aerosociety.com/SDSR

Air Power Seminar

SDSR - ONE YEAR ON

LONDON / 05 DECEMBER 2016

Lead Sponsor

This half-day seminar aims to further understand how SDSR15 will change the face of the UK’s Air Force.

- How will this new government and the Brexit vote effect the plans outlined in SDSR 2015?

- What has been achieved so far?

- How realistic are the plans outlined in the review based on current views?

www.aerosociety.com/WOW2016

ACM SIR STEPHEN HILLIER KCB CBE DFC ADC MA FRAeS RAFCHIEF OF THE AIR STAFF, ROYAL AIR FORCE

Wilbur and Orville Wright Named Lecture and 2016 RAeS Honours

GROWING THE FUTURE RAF

LONDON / 6 DECEMBER 2016

The RAF is busier than ever on operations around the world and at the same time it is planned to increase significantly its front-line capability as a result of the SDSR in 2015. Against this backdrop, the Chief of the Air Staff will discuss the challenges, risks and opportunities which he faces in growing the future RAF.

Prior to the lecture, the RAeS 2016 Honours will be presented.

Supported by

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2016 CHRISTMAS CARDS

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Alternatively, email us at [email protected] or call us on +44(0)20 7670 4345

New for 2016 - Christmas Tree Design (right)

- Spitfire

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- Plane over lake

All cards are available for £6 for a pack of 10.

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