DRONE ACADEMY - Royal Aeronautical Society

DRONE ACADEMYPLACING AIRMANSHIP AT THE HEART OF UAV TRAINING

April 2019

RUSSIAN HYPERSONICS

THE TURBOPROP REVIVAL

THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL NEWSPACE

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Contents

Comment

End of an era at Farnborough

Regulars

Afterburner

School of dronesTim Robinson joins a commercial drone training course with HALO Drones.

4 Radome The latest aviation and aeronautical intelligence, analysis and comment.

10 Antenna Howard Wheeldon looks back at the achievements of the RAF Tornado fighter.

12 TransmissionYour letters, emails, tweets and feedback.

58 The Last WordKeith Hayward reviews the future prospects for the UK aerospace industry post Brexit.

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Features

Russia accelerates hypersonics raceRussia is currently working on a range of hypersonic vehicle projects, including missiles, airliners and drones.

Under pressureThe RAF now has a new training centrifuge which can replicate the high-G forces which pilots will experience flying modern fighters.

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Volume 46 Number 4April 2019

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

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Sharing the skiesThe latest progress on integrating UAVs into both military and commercial airspace.

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On 5 March the organisers of the Farnborough Air Show announced that the public flying days, held on the weekend, would now be discontinued, although the Friday of the show would now be fully opened up to the public. A spokesperson also blamed ‘negative’ feedback from a dwindling number of visitors on the public days as being behind the move. Predictably this announcement led to yet more negative feedback and criticism – with the feeling that Farnborough is set to lose an important part of its show. But this decision has been a long time coming and owes more to the urban growth of London and its suburbs over the past 70 years than malice. What was once the home of the RAE and a sleepy town centred on aeronautics has become encroached on all sides by housing estates and business parks. Increased health and safety considerations has led to a progressively smaller airspace to display aircraft, as well as fewer new types of aircraft to showcase – with the Shoreham tragedy in 2015 being the final straw. However, a thought occurs. Why not make the whole week open to the public? Although exhibitors might grumble that this would detract from the B2B trade aspect, it perhaps is worth considering. It would let people see the latest aircraft before they depart to resume busy testing schedules and allow companies to have their STEM and careers opportunities every day. Farnborough is the showcase for global aerospace innovation and technology and if this can be communicated by allowing keen young people to directly interact with workers on exhibition stands, then surely this is a small price to pay for running out of a few extra corporate pens and badges?

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

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

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

Publications Co-ordinator Chris Male +44 (0)20 7670 4352 [email protected]

Publications ExecutiveAnnabel Hallam+44 (0)20 7670 4361 [email protected]

Book Review EditorBrian Riddle

Editorial Office Royal Aeronautical Society No.4 Hamilton Place London W1J 7BQ, UK +44 (0)20 7670 4300 [email protected]

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

Chief Executive Sir Brian Burridge CBE FRAeS

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

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ISSN 2052-451X

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42 Message from our President

43 Message from our Chief Executive

44 Book Reviews

47 Library Additions

58 Minutes of the 2018 AGM

50 Obituary

52 Diary

54 2019 Anniversaries

56 Elections

OnlineAdditional features and content are

available to view online on www.media.aerosociety.com/aerospace-insight

Including: The role of business and GA in aircraft

engineering, Flying the connected skies, In the March issue of AEROSPACE, New RAF pilot

training centrifuge, Turboprop revival?, Requiem for a superjumbo, Space in 2019 – a look ahead, EASA’s new

rules on pilot mental fitness.

ATR

Front cover: UAV training course. (HALO Drones)

Tim Robinson, Editor-in-Chief

[email protected] Flocks awayHow drones can be used to divert birds away from airports and how microlights are used to encourage bird migration.

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of the Russia Federation

34 NewSpace maturesNewSpace start-ups promise affordable launches and smallsats constellations.

Return of the turbopropCan the commercial turboprop still compete with new regional jet designs?

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RadomeINTELLIGENCE / ANALYSIS / COMMENT

SpecificationsLength 38ftRange 2,000+nm

Testing in the outbackThree ATS prototypes will be built and tested in Australia, with the large airspace ranges and low-population density ideal for flight testing advanced military UCAVs.

Keeping the cost downKey to ‘attritable’ UCAVs is making them affordable to field in large numbers along-side manned aircraft. For ATS, Boeing says it plans to use an undisclosed commercial turbofan engine to reduce costs.

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Boeing’s loyal wingmanUnveiled at the 2019 Avalon air show in Australia on 26 February was a mock-up of a new UCAV from Boeing designed to act as a 'Loyal Wingman' with piloted platforms. The Airpower Teaming System (ATS) is a long-range, high-speed, fighter-sized stealth drone and will be developed in a partnership between Boeing Defense and the Australian Government, which is putting up to A$40m torwards the project. This will be the first Boeing unmanned system to be built outside the US. First flight is aimed for 2020.

Modular payloadNo weapons or sensors have been described yet but the company has revealed the ATS will be designed so that payloads (such as ISR or EW) can be swapped around for other customers. Some Loyal Wingman concepts also see UCAVs acting as airborne ‘reloads’ for air-to-air or air-to-surface weapons.

Long rangeThe ATS will have a long reach with a range of over 2,000nm − ideal for Australia’s requirements in the large Asia-Pacific region.

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Advanced AIDescribed as a ‘game-changer’ by Boeing, the ATS would use advanced autonomy to allow it to fly independent missions or act as support/escort with manned platforms, such as the F-35, E/A-18G Growler, E-7 Wedgetail or P-8 Poseidon.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

The Colombian aviation authority is investigating the crash of Laser Aereo DC-3 which came down in central Colombia on 9 March, killing all 14 people aboard. The aircraft, which first entered service as a USAAF C-47 in 1942, was on a scheduled flight from San José del Guaviare to central Villavicencio when the accident occured.

The International Airlines Group (IAG) has ordered

18 Boeing 777-9Xs plus 24 options to be used by British Airways. Due to be delivered between 2022 and 2025, the new aircraft will replace 14 Boeing 747-400s and four Boeing 777-200s.

The F-35C, the aircraft carrier variant of the Lockheed Martin Lightning II, has achieved initial operational capability (IOC). The announcement was made on 28 February after the US

Department of the Navy’s first F-35C squadron completed aircraft carrier qualifications aboard USS Carl Vinson.

Russian space agency Roscosmos and US-based Space Adventures have signed a deal to fly two ‘space tourists’ to the ISS and back. The flights would use spare seats on the Russian Soyuz-MS capsule, with the goal of the flight taking place before the end of 2021.

This is the first ‘space tourist’ flight to the ISS since 2009.

Airbus Helicopters has won a five-year service and maintenance contract from the UK's National Police Air Service to support 15 x EC135s and 4 x EC145s.

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recovered both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from

the wreckage of an Atlas Air Boeing 767 cargo aircraft that crashed in Trinity Bay in Anahuac, Texas, on 2 March killing all three people onboard.

The Vietnamese travel group FLC has confirmed an order for ten Boeing 787-9s for its newly started Bamboo Airways unit.

Spain has joined the Franco-German project to develop a future combat air system (FCAS)

AEROSPACE GENERALAVIATION

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Andy Hill, the pilot of the Hawker Hunter that crashed at Shoreham in 2015, and which killed 11 people on the ground, has been acquitted of manslaughter at a trial at the Old Bailey. The jury cleared Hill after the defence argued he had been ‘cognitively impaired’ during the incident.

Nations race to ground 737 MAX after second fatal MAX accident in four months

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An Indian Air Force MiG-21 Bison was shot down by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighters and its pilot captured during two days of aerial skirmishes over Kashmir in late February. The shootdown happened during a PAF strike aimed at Indian targets, in retaliation for an earlier IAF raid on suspected terrorist camps. The pilot was later returned to India. India, meanwhile, claimed that a PAF F-16 had also been shot down during the dogfight.

Agreement on UK-EU no-deal flights reachedThe UK has reached a temporary agreement with the European Union that will permit flights between the UK and the EU to continue after 29 March, even if there is no deal on Brexit. The UK Department for Transport has said that it will grant

EU-licensed airlines continued access to the UK as the EU proposes

to give to UK airlines in Europe. This reciprocal agreement would apply

for a year up to 29 March 2020, or

until the negotiation of a permanent deal.

As AEROSPACE goes to press, the global fleet of over 370 Boeing 737 MAX airliners has been grounded in the wake of a fatal accident on 10 March, involving an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 which killed all 149 on board. The aircraft had departed from Addis Ababa airport when it plunged into the ground after six minutes. This

Shoreham pilot acquitted

IAF MiG-21 Bison shot down in skirmish over Kashmir

DEFENCE

accident follows the October 2018 crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX 8 which killed 189. Ethiopia has grounded the 737 MAX along with national aviation authorities including Australia, Canada, China, Oman, Malaysia, South Korea, UK and EASA. On 13 March the US FAA followed suit. An investigation into the crash is underway.

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manned/unmanned fighter. Scheduled to enter service by 2040, FCAS is intended as a future replacement for Eurofighter and Rafale. On 21 February Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft successfully landed on the asteroid Ryugu and collected material from the object, using a pellet gun to kick up dust. It is then set to lift-off and return back to Earth in 2020.

Dassault Aviation has taken over the European MRO activities of TAG Aviation Group. The maintenance activities will be incorporated into Dassault over the next few months.

Production of Russia’s new passenger jet, the UAC MC21, is set to be delayed until the end of 2020. The slippage has been put down to US sanctions on composite

materials needed for the MC21 and the time needed to develop alternative sources.

Southwest Airlines has received a warning from the US FAA raising concerns about safety after the airline’s ongoing dispute over new contracts with the AMFA (Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association) mechanics’ union. The dispute has seen the airline cancel over 100 flights a day.

The US Marine Corps has retired the last of the Grumman EA-6 Prowlers from active service. They have now been replaced in the EW role by Boeing E/A-18G Growlers.

An Egyptian Earth-observation satellite was launched into orbit from Baikonur aboard a Soyuz 1.b rocket on 21 February.Built by RSC Energia in Russia, the EgyptSat-A remote sensing satellite

will provide high-resolution surveillance imagery for the Egyptian military and other government agencies.

Kaman has announced plans to offer an optionally piloted variant of its K-Max helicopter to commercial customers by 2020. Kaman believes that an UAV autonomous helicopter could be useful for lengthy or hazardous civil missions, such as forest fire fighting.

CityAirbus eVTOL makes public debutN

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R-R backs out of NMA engine race

An unmanned SpaceX Dragon astronaut capsule returned to Earth on 8 March following a successful test flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Carrying a test dummy and 90kg of supplies, the Crew Dragon capsule docked autonomously with the ISS on 3 March. The Crew Dragon splashed down 230 miles off the coast of Cape Canaveral where it was recovered by SpaceX’s ship, Go Searcher. SpaceX will next conduct an unmanned inflight abort test mission, after which the first crewed mission is planned for July.

Rolls-Royce has announced that it will no longer be competing to supply an engine for Boeing’s proposed New Midsize Airplane (NMA) aircraft. The engine manufacturer said that it was unable to commit to the planned timeline for the project, although it would continue to develop its new UltraFan design which it

Transport Pixels

GENERAL AVIATION

Enter the

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SPACEFLIGHT

BMI Regional goes bankruptPassengers of UK regional operator BMI Regional were stranded across Europe after the airline ceased operations on 16 February and filed for administration. The airline, which operated under the brand name Flybmi, attributed its bankruptcy to fluctuations in fuel cost and being unable to secure

valuable flying contracts in Europe due to business uncertainty over Brexit.

BMI Regional was created in 2012 as a new airline, after mainline carrier BMI was sold to British

Airways parent IAG. BMI Regional is part of

Airline Investments which also owns Scottish operator Loganair.

On 11 March Airbus revealed its CityAirbus eVTOL prototype in public for the first time in Ingolstadt, Germany. The aircraft has been undergoing ground tests ahead of a first flight within the next few weeks.

AEROSPACE

had proposed for the NMA. Boeing has yet to formally launch the NMA.

Meanwhile, the company has also revealed it has pulled out of an effort to supply engines for Turkey's TF-X fifth generation stealth fighter project. Negotiations fell apart due to concerns over IP sharing.

AIR TRANSPORT


Mitsubishi's MRJ regional jet has now began certification flight tests using its fourth prototype. The company is aiming to deliver the first MRJ in 2020 to launch customer All Nippon Airways.

The US FAA and DoT have introduced a new interim rule banning lithium ion batteries being carried as cargo on passenger aircraft. However, the regulations will still permit

lithium ion cells to be carried on cargo aircraft.

The USAF Air Force Research Laboratory has revealed that the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie UCAV made its first flight on 5 March at a test range in Arizona. The Valkyrie is a high-speed 'Loyal Wingman' combat drone.

Reaction Engines' SABRE air-breathing engine core has had its preliminary design reviewed by ESA

and the UK Space Agency, ahead of ground-based testing.

Daher has unveiled its latest single-engined turboprop − the TBM 940. The 940 features an autothrottle, improved anti-icing and a revamped cabin. Certification is expected this month.

UK start-up Faradair has revealed it is aiming to certify its 18-seat hybrid-electric BEHA M1H

aircraft (Bio Electric Hybrid Aircraft) for commercial passenger operations by 2025.

Greece has signed a contract to build a new civil airport on the island of Crete. The new airport, located at the former Kastelli military airfield near Heraklion, will be built and operated by the Ariadne Airport Group consortium. The new Kastelli Airport is scheduled to open in 2023 and is expected to handle

over 7m passengers a year.

At the 2019 Aero India exhibition, India’s Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) unveiled a planned upgrade from the HAL Tejas Mk2 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) to a Medium Weight Fighter. The changes include canards, uprated engine, extra fuel and wingtip missile stations which boosts the aircraft's weapon payload from 3.3t to 6.5t.

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On 5 March, Farnborough International, the organisers of the biennial Farnborough International Air Show announced that the traditional two-day public display weekend is to be scrapped. Declining visitors and negative feedback were behind the move. Instead, says FIA, for the 2020 exhibition, the Friday careers-focused ‘Futures Day’ will be merged with public access to the show and exhibition halls.

Etihad scales back ordersAIR TRANSPORT

Farnborough axes public daysAbu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways has formally cancelled orders for 42 A350s (40 A350-900s and two A350-1000s) with airframer Airbus. The cancellations form part of a larger rationalisation and restructuring of Etihad's future fleet, with the carrier also cutting previously

announced orders for 26 Boeing 777s to six

777-9s. The airline says it will also take delivery of five A350-1000s and 25

A321neos in the 'coming years'. The

airline has been struggling to make profits and has racked up losses of more than $4.75bn in the past three years.

In a hearing to the US Senate, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, revealed that the agency is exploring options to launch the crewed Orion capsule using commercial rockets, instead of its own heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) designed to launch Orion. NASA appears to be considering commercial

launchers in order to meet the deadline of sending the Orion spacecraft on its first uncrewed test mission around the Moon in 2020, as delays with SLS mean it is unlikley to be ready. NASA has already called for commercial launchers to help build its Lunar Gateway outpost, as well as launch the Europa Clipper science mission in 2023.

Airbus

NASA mulls sidelining SLS rocket

Lockheed pitches ‘F-21’ to IndiaAt the Aero India air show in Bangalore, Lockheed Martin revealed a new proposed variant of its F-16 for the Indian Air Force – the F-21. The F-21, which builds on earlier advanced F-16s such as the F-16V, F-16 Block 70 and F-16IN, features conformal fuel tanks, a retractable refuelling probe, dorsal spine for avionics and triple AMRAAM launchers. Inside the cockpit the F-16's separate MFDs have now been replaced by a single F-35-style wide area display.

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GENERAL AVIATION

Secretary of the US Air Force Heather Wilson is to step down at the end of May.

The Royal Air Force has appointed Sue Gray to the rank of Air Marshal and Director General of the Defence Safety Authority.

L Don Miller is the new President and CEO of the Bristow Group.

ON THE MOVE


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INFOGRAPHIC: Stuck in the holding pattern − UK military flying training

RAeS

There are approximately 350 trainee pilots from the Royal Navy, Army and RAF in ‘holding’ in the military flying training pipeline and the average time from Elementary Flying Training to...

Rotary training 112 Weeks

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58 Weeks

72 WeeksMulti-engine training

Fast jet training

AEROSPACE

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OneWeb confirmed as first Ariane 6 customer

The Lufthansa Group has placed an order for 40 new widebodies, split between Airbus and Boeing. The $12bn order, for 20 Airbus A350-900s and 20 Boeing 787-9s will be used to replace older four-engined airliners in its fleet. As part of this, Lufthansa is to sell six of its A380s back to manufacturer, Airbus.

Lufthansa doubles down on big twins

A Bombardier Global 7500 bizjet has completed, what is claimed to be, the longest non-stop flight by a purpose-built business jet in history, flying for 8,152nm on 4 March – over and above its advertised range of 7,700nm. The aircraft flew from Changi

Arianespace has announced that the launch customer for its new Ariane 6 launcher in 2020 will be high-speed Internet provider OneWeb, which plans to deploy a constellation of an eventual 600+ micro satellites into low-Earth orbit. The first six OneWeb satellites were deployed from an Arianespace

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Supersonic civil aircraft manufacturer Aerion has appointed Cathy Rice as VP Business Management and Scott Kalister as VP Worldwide Support & Logistics.

Boeing has named Anne Toulouse as Senior VP of Communications.

Sharon Bryson has been confirmed as the new MD of the US NTSB.

Norman Lee is the new VP of Marketing at Atlas Space Operations.

SPACEFLIGHT

Global 7500 stretches out its long legs

Soyuz rocket launched from French Guiana on 27 February. A further 20 Soyuz OneWeb launches are due to follow, with the rockets placing 32-36 satellites into orbit each time. On 18 February UK-based OneWeb was awarded £18m of ESA funding by the UK Space Agency.

Goodyear envisages tyre/rotor hybrid

Tyre manufacturer Goodyear has revealed a concept for a dual purpose road tyre and ducted fan for autonomous eVTOLs or ‘flying cars’. The AERO tyre, unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, would see fan blades used as spokes of the wheels, while an outer rim would allow the vehicle to be driven on roads. The fan/wheel would feature a bearingless magnetic drive.

Airport in Singapore to Tucson International

Airport, Arizona, in the US.

Airborne for approximately 16 hours, the aircraft

also landed with 4,300lb of

remaining fuel, or almost 1.5hrs of additional flight time.


antenna:

Afinal series of official flypasts in February by Royal Air Force Panavia Tornado GR4s provided a fitting tribute to mark Tornado capability bowing out of the RAF inventory at

the end of March. These took place over many of the bases that this superb variable sweep-wing multi-role combat aircraft has operated from over the past 38 years, culminating in a brilliant nine ship display over RAF Marham on 28 February.

For the past 28 years RAF Tornado jets have been in almost continual deployment either in theatre or in support of our allies. In terms of the capability that it provides, the platform bows out at the very top of its game, with the last two RAF Tornado GR4 Squadrons to operate the aircraft (1X (B) and 31 Squadron) having only in February returned back to base at RAF Marham from RAF Akrotiri following four years of continuous primary precision attack missions over Syria and Iraq as part of ‘Op Shader’.

Birth of the Tornado

Although not yet known by that name, the Tornado was effectively born when, on 5 July 1967. The then Minister of Defence Denis Healey announced not only that France had suddenly withdrawn from the Anglo-French Variable Geometry (AFVG) project but also that, as a direct consequence of that decision, he was authorising the two British companies in the now defunct Anglo/French partnership, British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) and Bristol Siddeley, to continue variable-geometry military fighter aircraft studies to amended specifications.

BAC (BAE Systems today) already had a long history of research in what was originally termed ‘polymorphic aircraft configurations’ (aircraft that changed their shape in flight), stretching back to original work done by the late Sir Barnes Wallis.

Pleasingly, from its early beginnings, the Tornado programme was one of those collaborative partnerships that worked very well. The formal beginnings of the project development date back to March 1969 with the UK, Germany and Italy agreeing to take what had by then become known as the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) programme into a newly formed industrial company partnership to be known as Panavia. From an industry standpoint this comprised British Aircraft Corporation, Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), Fiat Aviazione (later Aeritalia

Global Outlook and Analysis with HOWARD WHEELDON

The Tornado finally bows out from RAF service

following the merger of Fiat Aviazione and Aerfer and, from 1990 following the merger with Selenia, Alenia Aeronautics). VFW-Fokker was also involved in the initial phase. A separate partnership, known as Turbo-Union, comprising Rolls-Royce, MTU and Fiat, was established to develop what would become the RB199 three-spool turbofan engine which was equipped with both afterburners and thrust reversers.

One year later, in 1970, MRCA was authorised by the partner governments for prototyping as a twin-seat, multi-role aircraft capability, with initial provision for carrying a range of air-to-air missiles and which would later, as a separate type, also be optimised to carry air-to-ground weapons. The first aircraft of what would eventually be nine MRCA prototypes flew from Manching, Germany, in August 1974, followed two months later in October 1974 by the first British prototype.

The Panavia Panther?

Originally called Panther for a short period, by 1977 MRCA had morphed into the Tornado in the form of two primary variants, one designed for Interdiction Strike (IDS) and the other, an Air Defence Variant (ADV). The Royal Air Force took delivery of what by then had become the Tornado GR1 in July 1980. In all, a total of 992 Tornado aircraft would be built for the three governments by the Panavia partnership, with Saudi Arabia being the only export customer.

The development phase, particularly in relation to testing of the RB199 engine – which was done initially under an Avro Vulcan – suffice to say that development and entry into service phases of Tornado was not without problems. Of the two variants, it was the F3 Air Defence variant that posed most problems but even so, by the time of the first Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm) in 1991, Tornado F3 proved to be a very potent capability in the air defence role and the GR1 quickly established itself as the primary precision attack capability in the Royal Air Force.

With the Tornado having been a sizable part of my own professional life in respect of following its development and through life, I have often imagined that the aircraft could well have begun life in the early 1960s as a few scribblings by some RAF officers of a swing-wing variable geometry aircraft type that could, in separate forms, be capable of conducting both the air-to-air attack or defence or air-to-ground attack roles.

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THEY SAY THAT A COMBAT JET AIRCRAFT IS NEVER AS GOOD AS THE DAY THAT IT IS RETIRED FROM SERVICE AND THAT, IN CAPABILITY TERMS, IS CERTAINLY TRUE OF THE TORNADO GR4

At the peak of its powers

While Tornado will remain in service with the German and Italian Air Forces, along with the Saudi Royal Air Force for many years yet, the RAF Tornado Force has been in almost continuous operational deployment from the Gulf War in 1991 all the way through and including ‘Op Shader’ in Iraq and Syria until the final 1X (B) and 31 Squadron aircraft returned to their RAF Marham base in February this year.

They say that a combat jet aircraft is never as good as the day that it is retired from service and that, in capability terms, is certainly true of the Tornado GR4. To the very end, equipped with a formidable array of complex weapon capability, the RAF Tornado GR4 has provided all that has ever been asked of it and more besides.

The Tornado F3 Air Defence Variant (ADV) variant was retired from RAF service in 2012. The more numerous GR1, or in upgraded form (142 of the original 228 GR1 aircraft were upgraded to GR4 standard by BAE Systems between 1997 and 2003) GR4, air-to-ground precision attack and reconnaissance Tornado GR4 has, until the recent advent of the Typhoon to become the RAF’s primary air-to-ground attack role platform, been the backbone of frontline capability for as long as many can remember.

In service for 38 years, Tornado has a capability that we have seemingly taken for granted for so long, that it is even now hard to imagine the RAF without it.

The Tornado bows out on a high

Having been enhanced over the years through a series of upgrades, the Tornado GR4 is very far removed from the platform that was conceived in the late 1960s to meet the variety of multinational requirements imagined at that time. Carrying a vast array of complex weapon capability and having served in almost every conflict that UK armed forces have subsequently been involved, it is hard to think of any other post-war RAF fast jet capability that has been worked so hard and achieved so much during its long service life. That said, I well understand that Harrier pilots might argue with that statement.

Designed to fulfil dual ground attack and armed reconnaissance mission roles, the former against targets of opportunity and also to provide close air

support for ground forces, in its final form Tornado GR4 carried Paveway III and IV dual-mode laser-guided bombs together with Storm Shadow missiles. These afforded the platform with capability for precision strike against bunkers and other hardened facilities, together with Dual-Mode Seeker Brimstone for precision strike against specific targets deemed to present the possibility of collateral-damage challenge, as well as other targets such as static and moving armoured vehicles. With its Reconnaissance Airborne Pod Tornado (RAPTOR) system and the Litening III targeting pod used on intelligence gathering missions, Tornado GR4 was recognised and respected by our allies as having formidable capability.

With the substantial work done under the Project Centurion exercise and with the transfer of capabilities such as Brimstone and Storm Shadow to the RAF Typhoon now complete, the Tornado GR4 can be retired in the knowledge that it has a worthy successor in the Typhoon. Tornado has done its job and it has done it very well. Few would disagree that, in respect of both platform and complex weapons capability, this has been a remarkable aircraft and a story of great success. Not only did Tornado prove itself to have a formidable capability in service and one that was able to achieve everything that it said on the tin it could do more besides and also proved that collaborative projects can and do work, provided politics are not allowed to get in the way.

A farewell formation of nine Tornado GR4s from RAF Marham marked the aircraft's retirement from RAF service.

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Carrying spare engines on wing

With regards to the item in the March issue of AEROSPACE about a 747 with a spare engine on the wing(1), it reminded me of an occasion when I saw a diagram of a VC10 showing a spare engine on the starboard wing. Naturally I was curious about this so asked my step-grandfather (Alan Campbell-Orde) about this, as he would have been familiar with the concept from his days with BOAC as Operations Director. It transpired that the idea was first used on seaplanes in Africa as the easiest way

Another aircraft type with a spare engine – a Qantas Boeing 707 with a spare engine under its port wing at Frankfurt Airport in 1972.

to transport an engine which would otherwise be extremely difficult to load onto an aircraft to get it to an operating base in some far flung outpost. Much easier to use a launch to

position an engine under the wing and then winch it up into position before bolting it on. The concept has also been used on the Lockheed TriStar which can carry an engine on the starboard wing and the Douglas DC-10 which used the port wing like the Boeing 747. I have no doubt that numerous other large aircraft have the capability to carry a spare engine on the wing rather than waiting for a cargo aircraft to turn up.

Roderick Douglas

[On Requiem for a Superjumbo(2)] It’s a real shame. The flying experience is excellent for passengers. Sadly, we will all be expected to cram into smaller twin-engine aircraft from now on. Personally I would be happy to pay a little more to actually be comfortable on a long-haul flight but the airlines simply view us as two-legged cattle.

Julian Maynard

She is a great aircraft to fly in and surely re-engining could bring down operating costs.

Philip Wyld

Let’s hear it for the A380

Can’t help but feel that the freighter market might have saved the programme. I have an old A380 freighter model in FedEx livery signed by Fred Smith ... and yet they never went ahead with the purchase.

Peter Coles FRAeS

A good article delivering sound judgements on an emotive project. The A380 was a niche market aircraft but that niche appears to have closed.

Geoffrey Wardle MRAeS

Lithium battery safety

Airbus did propose a freighter version of the A380 when the project was first launched.

[On RAeS Lithium battery safety conference(3)] A massive thanks to all those involved in the organisation of the conference today. This emerging risk is something we can’t just ignore given the evidence. Some fascinating discussions and an impressive practical demonstration of available mitigations. In the words of John Cox: “So what are you going to do?”

Michael Kitching

@PaulMarks12 [On reverse thrust on hybrid-electric airliners] Just wondering: will electric-motor-based aircraft powerplant need thrust reversers or will they simply reverse the current?

@Al_Brock Discussed this with Riona over dinner after the lecture. This [E-FanX] programme is a technology demonstrator. Several ideas ranging from mechanical buckets/ diverters, controlled deceleration to run in reverse or even variable pitch fan blades. None of these are part of the programme.

@cydney0071 Then run it up in reverse which takes time. Thrust reverse is instant and instantly off also!

Switching into reverse

@mikeheywood [On why does Concorde still grab our imagination 50 years on(4)] Because it’s 50 years old but looks like it was designed yesterday.

@CdnAvSpotter The world of aviation was booming in the 1960s… and everything was designed on paper with slide rules. My grandfather worked for Avro, de Havilland, Canadair, Boeing and NASA from 1948 to 1986 and worked on so many cool airplanes, rockets and airplane systems.

@Waternook Lucky enough to have flown on Concorde, even if it was just a short loop over Europe and back. Never guessed it would be so significant and that such an iconic aircraft was not set to stay.

@PhillipCovell Pure Elegant Class!

It was a great feeling returning from JFK in their morning and arriving LHR totally refreshed in the evening (UK time) and not having to endure the overnight red-eye special!

@ColinWBurns Because it’s aesthetically beautiful and magnificent engineering.

@pflusk What we couldn’t do now with modern cfd, ceramic metal composites and fly-by-wire. Concorde is remembered for being state-of-the-art and aesthetically perfect.

Concorde at 50

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@ICAO At second Nancy-Bird Walton Memorial Address, presented by #Australia’s Mission to ICAO & @AeroSociety, @Qantas Capt Lisa Norman provided useful and inspiring insight into her experience as a female pilot and about ways to achieve #genderequality in #aviation. #WomensDay

13APRIL 2019

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

1. AEROSPACE, January 2019, p 13, Transmissions, 50th anniversary of first 747 flight draws memories2. hhttps://www.aerosociety.com/news/requiem-for-a-superjumbo/3. https://www.aerosociety.com/news/proceedings-lithium-battery-a-rising-risk-in-aviation/4. AEROSPACE, January 2019, p 14, Beautiful bird, lovely plumage5. https://www.aerosociety.com/events-calendar/carrier-operations-with-the-dh110-sea-vixen/

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@KieranByeJRPSS It affects all the way down to potential recruits for sure. Cutbacks on pilot recruitment also means setting the bar much higher, potentially missing out on some serious talent with slightly lower scores.

@wilhelmscream4 Effects of this are yet to be felt. Pilots arriving at FL 28 or 29. No longer single entities, can be married with kids. They aren’t on flying pay. Contemporaries in military are promoted well ahead of them. All means less time in the cockpit and retention negative.

@RAF_Simmer The whole purpose of MFTS was to avoid exactly these kinds of holds. I think we simply need more aircraft and more instructors – ten Texans and five Phenoms, for example, are nowhere near enough.

FIA announce end to Farnborough Air Show public days

@MarkHortenPhoto The display restrictions meant that the flying displays have been massively neutered to be honest.

@MichaelJPryce That is, frankly, pants! Yes, the show was withering, yes, there is RIAT, but Farnborough was about the latest and greatest. Now just a dismal STEM day for corralled sixth formers, not wide-eyed 12 year-olds seeing their first marvel. Iconic no more.

@Varcs There will still be an industry show, and a public open day, but let’s face it, the show has changed and it was no longer a huge draw even among airshow goers.

@Steveaprocter I think more young people who are to be the next generation are likely to come from the large crowds on public days rather than some smaller ‘formal’ initiative that won’t have anywhere the same numbers attending.

@oat_cuisine You cannot let the lifeblood and public appreciation for the UK aerospace industry drain away without taking a stand. Please consider a strongly worded article and #oped on the subject.

Nancy-Bird Walton Named Lecture in Montreal

@Centeclan [On Sea Vixen carrier launches (lecture Gatwick Branch 13 March)(5)] They ditched a cable on each launch? How did they know it wouldn’t get wound around the propellers (or screws – whatever naval people call them!)?

@TimRuff3 It’s called a bridle. Have a google at aircraft bridle catcher, the reason for the strange protruberances refitted on aircraft carriers becomes apparent.

@GbhvfRon My late friend ‘Fred’ Frederiksen received a tankard for his ‘untyring’ efforts (bursting Sea Vixen tyres) during a carrier detachment.

Qantas Captain Lisa Norman.

Launching the Vixen

John Stringfellow – first powered flight?

rogerkb2012 A question! I watched an interesting video on Eastchurch Airfield and thoughts turned to Chard where John Stringfellow is said to have made the first powered flight in 1848. Why is his flight not recognised in the same way as the Wright brothers’ 1903 flight?

UK military flying training in crisis?

@peterryhshughes OK, which plane go upwards the quickest? My money is on a Lightning or maybe a Vulcan, as I have seen both of them do it very quickly.

@Hush_Kit Fastest climb rate? Typhoon or MiG-35, I’d guess – or Su-57.

@CombatAir Records grabbed by the Sukhoi P-42, I think.

@TWPILOT1 Did you consider the TSR-2? It could outperform a #Lightning by a big margin.

Fastest climb?

The Nancy-Bird Walton Named Lecture was established by the RAeS Montreal Branch in 2016 in tribute to Nancy-Bird Walton AO OBE DStJ, pioneering Australian aviatrix and founder/patron of the Australian Women Pilots’ Association. In the 1930s, defying the traditional role of women of her time, she became a fully qualified pilot at the age of 19 and the youngest Australian woman to gain a pilot’s license.

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somewhat recently, there is still the wider concern that ‘rogue drone’ users could slow or stifle the development of this innovative and fast-growing sector – with the Gatwick incident last year already having lead to tougher regulations around airports. Building public confidence with responsible and professionally-orientated UAV operators is vital – which is where HALO comes in.

Accelerated learning

Key to HALO’s approach is taking the latest teaching techniques in ‘accelerated and experiential learning’ to provide an interactive and (dare one say) ‘fun’ course to prepare them for the PfCO test and becoming a safe UAV operator.

Philip Tarry, Director of commercial UAV operator HALO Drones, as well as being co-founder of UAV industry group ARPAS and a member of the RAeS UAS Specialist Group, explains the thinking and the haphazard way in which he became a commercial drone operator and which led him to developing a training course of his own.

“Through my experience of completing training with an NQE and entering into the market as an operator, it became clear that my course had not


GENERAL AVIATIONCommercial drone training

‘Rogue drones’ may have hit headlines recently but one company is going above and beyond in preparing commercial UAV operators to have the mindset of professional aviators at

the highest possible standards. The two-day residential training, from

commercial drone operator HALO Drones, was first launched in 2018. The course – Foundation Certificate in Commercial Drone Operations (FCCDO) – seeks to prepare students to apply for their PfCO (Permission for Commercial Operation) from the CAA and covers everything from airmanship, to air law, weather, airspace, aircraft knowledge and the workflow for a commercial drone task. To attain a PfCO from the CAA, candidates must pass a theory exam and practical flight assessment, as well as have two hours of minimum experience.

Note that in the CAA’s eyes the ‘Operator’ with the PfCO is the person (or organisation) responsible for the Operations Manual and for standards and safety – rather than the UAV pilots themselves (although a UAV operator and pilot could theoretically be the same individual). There are now some 3,500 PfCO holders in the UK flying UAVs for commercial work.

However, it is an increasingly crowded market and, while the influx of new operators has slowed

How one company is aiming to raise standards to new levels in training remote UAV pilots – by the latest innovative coaching and learning. TIMROBINSON joins a commercial drone training course with HALO Drones.

School of drones

15APRIL 2019

sufficiently prepared me for what I intended to do with drones in my business. I spent the following two years working the rest out for myself and this was time

consuming and expensive. I had to hire in more experienced pilots for jobs that I didn’t feel

confident enough to conduct myself. I made mistakes and lost customers and brand reputation. I invested in the wrong equipment and even damaged drones.”

Tarry thus spotted there was a gap in the market for a higher standard

of training that would prepare drone operators for the PfCO test and also create

a nucleus of UAV ‘aviators’ who would help become ambassadors for this growing sector.Unlike other training courses that rely on ‘learning

by rote’ one-sided lectures from an instructor and death by Powerpoint, followed by an exam (memory test) where the answers are swiftly forgotten, HALO’s approach has been to utilise some of the latest thinking in ‘accelerated and experiential’ learning which combines facilitation with Q&As, quizzes, freeplay and scenario-based training to provide a deeper and richer consolidation of understanding. Unlike some courses, there is no formal exam at the end, removing the pressure of ‘cramming’ for a test over 48 hours. The PfCO theory and flight assessments are postponed to a later date which can be booked at the convenience of the candidate.

Says Tarry of the course’s development: “We were starting from scratch. First and foremost, HALO Drones is formed by subject matter experts, not adult learning specialists but, through our previous experience as instructors for other NQEs, we recognised that traditional lecture-based training methods are ineffective. With the objective to create an effective training course, we engaged adult learning specialists who consulted for us in the development process of the course. They challenged our conventional understanding of what makes a good training course and we tested their skills by developing something that would effectively deliver on our design objectives, while meeting the market’s expectations which have been set by our competitors.”

This course, which launched last year, took 16 months to develop, admits Tarry: “That is a long time, and it has been a very expensive process but we were not willing to make any compromises at the expense of the quality of our course.”

This sort of training of course is not unique, with Airbus and other organisations now embracing evidence-based training where ‘learning by discovery’ now forms part of the syllabus but HALO believes that it is the first UAV training organisation to roll this out.

Why airmanship?

As well as incorporating some of the latest thinking in ‘accelerated and experiential learning theory’ through

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‘playful discovery’, reflective practice and interaction, another innovation is that the course sets to put ‘airmanship’ at the core of its approach.

The philosophy that HALO is intending to embed in its students is that, although they will not have the huge responsibility of a Boeing 787 captain, they are still professional aviators. Understanding and developing this situational awareness and decision making is a key part of ‘airmanship’ – even if ‘aviation’ is not a core part of their company. As the course handbook proudly tells its students on the first page: ‘You are to become aviators’.

Notes Tarry: “The psychology of a pilot is something that must be at the forefront of any aviation-related training course. It underpins a pilot’s ability to make decisions (judgement), as highlighted in Kern’s model of Airmanship, which is why this is the first module of our course.”

An important part of this, he explains, is turning drone operators into active stakeholders: “Aviation is a world that few people get to interact with and it is therefore difficult to become a stakeholder in. The closest most people get is when flying abroad on holiday but even then, everything is closed behind locked doors. Once a person feels like a stakeholder, their mindset changes and a sense of responsibility comes with this ownership. We have found that this can transform an individual’s approach to how they conduct themselves. They tend to display greater respect for the responsibility that comes with becoming an aviator who will eventually share the airspace with others.”

Giving professional drone operators this ‘ownership’ and equipping them with the same vocabulary and knowledge (where to check NOTAMS, METARS, awareness of different kinds of airspace etc) as traditional aircrew is thus a key step in building trust between this new, fast-growing part of aerospace and its older sibling.

Thus, the course includes modules on air law (as applies to UAS), different kinds of airspace, human factors, meteorology, navigation, charts and aircraft knowledge.

GENERAL AVIATIONCommercial drone training

Training materials

The two-day course is supported by highly impressive training materials, including a 75-page full-colour handbook along with a student workbook – packed with tips, further reading, quizzes and real-world examples. Indeed, the layout and presentation of the handbook, in this author’s opinion, is of the standard of a far larger manned aviation organisation.

Students are also supplied with online web resources and guides, such as the best places to find NOTAMs, weather information, airspace guides, charts and (particularly useful for non-aviation clients) – a website (What3Words) that divides the globe into 3m × 3m squares allowing precise geo-location of properties or tasks – without requiring users to know exact GPS co-ordinates.

This was backed up with a very high-level of interaction and discussion with the instructor Michael Surcombe, an ex-BBC veteran – who was able to dedicate time to individuals and their particular questions – particularly guiding the group through the different parts of air law and regulatory instruments that apply to UAS – such as the ANO, CAP 393 and CAP 722.

As well as covering the essentials of air law, how to interpret aerial navigation charts and weather considerations, the course also includes information on when things go wrong and emergencies. What, for example, constitutes a ‘Reportable Incident’? Who should a near-miss be reported to? In emergency procedures, what would you do if your pilot reports they are feeling sick mid-way through a task? Some of these will have clear-cut answers – others may depend on the company’s Operations Manual.

Real-world scenarios

Yet, despite the high-quality ground school materials, the focus is always on real-world examples. Video

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Key in HALO’s approach is taking the latest teaching techniques in ‘accelerated learning’.

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shown during the course includes footage taken by (and of) some less than professional drone users, with the students asked to critique and provide assessment of the legality and safety issues in each case.

Part-way through the course, students were given a surprise and plunged into assessing a fictional inspection job, with a role-playing phone-call from a potential customer giving a location and asking their advice as a commercial drone operator.

Two locations (one in London, the other at the training venue) were given and it was up to the students to use all the tools and knowledge at their disposal to assess the feasibility of the work and fill out a risk assessment. For example, what class is the airspace? Where is the nearest airport? Is it an urban environment? Who has permission? Can we control access? How long will it take? Sometimes it may be that the cost/benefit equations mean that, for a given price, a task may not be viable and might have to be declined.

With the central London job declined, the next step for the students was an onsite survey of the course location, a country hotel, for a potential roof inspection job. With the students divided into teams, again the knowledge acquired during the first day was rapidly needed. What is the weather forecast? What do the latest NOTAMs say? Will the helipad be busy? Where are the best take-off and landing sites (and alternatives)? Can staff and guests be controlled and encourage to use other doors? Sometimes it may be that a drone is not the best way to collect the imagery or data – if might be that a camera on a long pole is a more suitable method.

Another hands-on session demonstrated the importance of checklists (even when assembling and flying small palm-sized drones indoors). Finally, there are also practical tips on putting together equipment lists for commercial drone tasks. Some of these may be self-evident (such as spare batteries and propellers), others more valuable (a folding trolley to carry equipment boxes apparently can be a lifesaver).

Feedback

The response from students on this course has so far been extremely positive. “The handbook is fantastic – it really sets you up to be a commercial pilot,” said Conner, who was from a surveying company that was looking to expand into aerial UAV operations. Another, Greg Rawell, who was taking the course before taking up a post in HALO itself, noted how it was “quite different” to a previous course he had attended, This had been a larger class of 15 students and the briefings had been “formulaic, matter-of-fact and very military-like.”

Summary

This course, and the operators it produces, comes at a highly critical time for the fast-growing UAV sector, as it seeks to move beyond visual LOS operations and integrate into manned airspace. Trials are underway but are dependent on winning over regulators, politicians, media and the public – who justifiably have concerns about safety and privacy. As the course handbook itself notes; ‘By default you will become the ambassadors of this revolutionary technology and the face of our industry. The key to growth is public perception.’ Though some might argue that this level of training for UAVs is overkill, raising the standards to higher levels is critical to unlocking more operationally useful drones, with longer ranges, higher endurance and bigger air vehicles – and able to seamlessly operate in the same airspace as manned aircraft.

HALO Drones’ Tarry sums up: “We are proud of what we have achieved and are confident that we have set a new standard of training in our industry. Our course intends to create pilots who are ‘commercially ready’, rather than simply compliant with the standards set by the CAA, which will in turn help them save money and be more competitive in a market that is already saturated.”

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Minister on the issues of the military-industrial complex in the Russian government, comments:

“With the rapid development of artillery, aviation and defence nuclear technologies, the speed characteristics of either aircraft or

weapon carriers have become issues of a particular importance. Since the 1940s,

mankind has passed through at least two scientific and technological revolutions. They are associated with the emergence of jet engines and supersonic technologies and have changed the understanding

of the effectiveness of aviation and weapons systems of the modern era. The

design and mass production of hypersonic devices, undoubtedly, is the next scientific and technological revolution, and those states that will be able to accomplish it, will gain a noticeable military and geopolitical advantage over their rivals in the foreseeable future.”

In fact, Russia has been conducting large-scale studies in the field of hypersonics since the beginning of the 2010s. In August 2011,


AEROSPACERussian hypersonic projects

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Russia plans to significantly accelerate its R&D activities in the field of hypersonic technologies and to expand the range of products from strategic missiles to space drones in the years to come,

according to recent statements by some leading local state officials in the field of defence and domestic experts in aerospace.

In recent years an interest in hypersonic technologies from Russian aerospace and military aviation has significantly increased, which has resulted in the implementation of new projects in this field and the resuming of some old ones, many of which were suspended in the country due to the financial crisis and its consequences.

Superiority of speed

Implementation of the majority of these projects has a strategic importance for the Russian government.

Yury Borisov, a former Russian Deputy Minister of Defence, who currently serves as Deputy Prime

THE DESIGN AND MASS PRODUCTION OF HYPERSONIC DEVICES, UNDOUBTEDLY, IS THE NEXT SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION, AND THOSE STATES THAT WILL BE ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH IT, WILL GAIN A NOTICEABLE MILITARY AND GEOPOLITICAL ADVANTAGE OVER ITS RIVALS IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE

Yury BorisovDeputy Prime Minister, Russia

Is speed the new ‘stealth’ in the 21st century? EUGENE GERDEN provides anupdate on Russian supersonic and hypersonic projects, which encompasseverything from missiles to business jets.

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Video footage from Russia’s Defence Ministry shows the Avangard hypersonic strategic missile blasting off last December in what President Vladimir Putin said was a successful test.

Russia accelerates hypersonics race

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Its speed exceeds Mach 20 and it approaches the target like a fireball, the surface temperature of which ranges between 1,600-2,000°C.

Some Russian experts in the field of aerospace speculate that the Avangard uses certain technologies first developed in Russia during the development of Spiral – a space launcher system consisting of a spaceplane, a hypersonic booster aircraft and a rocket – scientific works which were conducted in the USSR during the 1960s.

In addition to Avangard, attention is also being concentrated on further tests of Zircon which is a scramjet-powered manoeuvring anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile developed by NPO Mashinostroyeniya (Russia’s leading rocket design bureau based in Reutov) on the basis of the Russian-Indian anti-ship BrahMos-II missile.

Zircon became the first hypersonic missile designed in Russia since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Zircon’s range is estimated to be 135 to 270nm at low level and up to 400nm in a semi-ballistic trajectory. Its average range is around 250–280nm. The longest range is 540nm (620m, 1,000km) and for this purpose a new fuel was created.

This year deliveries have started of a miniature version of the Zircon hypersonic rocket for the Russian Navy, particularly for small rocket ships of the Karakurt and Buyan-M projects.

In addition, according to statements by Russia’s President Putin, due to the recent decision by the US to suspend the INF Treaty, Russia begins R&D activities to create new types of hypersonic missiles, particularly those on the basis of Zircon.

According to the Russian Presidential Administration, part of the plan is the design of a new hypersonic ground-based medium-range missile that will be launched from the same launchers used for Kalibr, a group of surface ship-, submarine-launched missiles. That means the costs for the design of a new version of Zircon will not be huge.

A Concorde Tu?

In the meantime, in addition to a military focus, another part of the state plans are the more active use of hypersonic technologies in the implementation of some civilian projects in Russia, such as a hypersonic-based passenger aircraft.

During Soviet times, the USSR had its own commercial supersonic transport aircraft, the Tu-144, which ceased production in 1982 due to unprofitability.

An initiative for the resumption of the design and building of a supersonic civil aircraft was initially put forward by President Vladimir Putin in January 2018 and was supported by some leading Russian scientists in the field of aerospace at that period of time.

Boris Obnosov, Director General of the Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation, said that Russia is continuing its works on the design of strategic missiles, which may reach speeds 12-13 times faster than the speed of sound. Since that time, a certain progress in this field has been achieved.

Nuclear glider

Probably, one of the most important projects for Russia in this field was the recent launch of Avangard, a hypersonic glider, which can deliver both nuclear and conventional payloads. The system entered service in March 2018 and was unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin as one of the six new Russian strategic weapons. The latest flight test occurred on 26 December 2018 when the glider was launched on board a UR-100UTTKh ICBM from the Dombarovsky missile base in the Ural Mountains and subsequently hit a target at the Kura Missile Test Range.

The glider overcomes the stratospheric layers (from 8 to 55km) with a temperature of –90°C and mesosphere (within 90km), where the temperature rises and then rapidly drops to –96°C. It spends most of its time in the thermosphere (up to 500km) and almost reaches outer space (from 118km).

The Russian Government considered axing the Avangard project, after a series of unsuccessful tests during 2013-2015. During that period scientists experienced serious difficulties with the design of a reliable operating system for the glider, being also unable to ensure its protection from ultra-high temperatures.

At present the glider is capable of breaking even the most advanced missile defence systems.

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Russia accelerates hypersonics race

The Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle flies 27 times faster than the speed of sound.


Implementation of the project has already started on the basis of the Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI). The project involves the design of an aircraft that will be able to perform transatlantic flights to a distance of 8,600km at a cruising speed of 1,900km/h.

In September 2018 a prototype of such an aircraft was officially presented during Hydroaviasalon, one the most important annual events in the Russian aerospace industry’s calender, which was held in the city of Gelendzhik.

According to Kirill Sypalo, General Director of TsAGI, one of the main problems associated with the design of such aircraft is its high acoustic impact both during the flight and within the airport zone.

Kirill Sypalo comments:“As a result of our studies, TsAGI seems to have managed to find a compromise between the energy efficiency of the aircraft (which is primarily determined by the combination of aerodynamics and the location of engines with their configuration) and its acoustic effect.”

Earlier this year Sergey Chernyshev, head of TsAGI’s department of high-speed aero-hydraulic equipment, also said that, while the level of acoustic impact from the Tu-144 was 100-130 pascals, the latest studies have shown that it can be reduced to 15-20, with a simultaneous reduction of volume to 65 decibels, which is equivalent to the noise of a big city.

According to Sypalo, the aircraft will be built on the basis of the technologies that have already been implemented on the Tu-144 project and some Russian supersonic long-range strategic bombers, particularly the Tu-160. The new aircraft will be

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designed for 60–80 passengers, while its weight will vary in the range of 100-120t.

It will have a stretched shape with a sharp-pointed nose. The engines of the aircraft will be placed in nacelles above the frame in its tail section between two fins. The wing of the aircraft is planned to be made with a V-shaped central part that will reduce its span. The fuselage of the aircraft will have an extremely streamlined shape which help to avoid the formation of shock waves on the airframe during supersonic flight.

Sypalo also added that series production of the aircraft is scheduled for 2030, while designers concentrate on making the design both economical and safe.

Due to such high speeds, the new Russian supersonic design will probably mostly use composite materials in its structure, instead of traditional aluminum.

The scramjet-powered Zircon (a hypersonic anti-ship missile, here shown testing in 2017) was Russia’s frst post-Cold War hypersonic cruise missile.

A TsAGI design for a hypersonic passenger vehicle at the 2017 MAKS show. Russia is a partner on the international HEXAFLY project.

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supersonic passenger aircraft in Russia, as Tupolev, another leading Russian design bureau, is currently involved in the development of a business jet analogue of TsAGI’s aircraft.

The hypersonic family

As an official spokesman of Tupolev said, the business jet, which is currently being designed by scientists in the bureau, will be able to reach speeds from 1,500 to 1,900km/h at an altitude of 11km. Its take-off mass will be 70 tons, while the number of seats in the cabin will be 30. The spokesman also added that, due to its special configuration, the

aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft will be high at all modes of its flight.

According to Mikhail Mikulochkin, head of Tupolev’s department of aviation engineering projects, a prototype of the aircraft will perform its first flight in 2027, while the total cost of the project is estimated at RUB 120bn ($2bn).

In the meantime, the Russian Air Force is also considering hypersonic technologies as one of the guarantees of the dominance of Russian military aircraft over its rivals in years to come.

As part of of this, a new modernised version of the Tu-160M supersonic strategic bomber will be officially presented this summer by the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Currently, modernisation of the bomber is being carried out at the Kazan aircraft factory, while the supplies of its new version to Russian Air Forces will be started by 2021.

According to Russian Defence Minister, Sergey Shoigu, the aircraft will have no equivalent in the world. It will be equipped with the latest on-board defence and communications systems, with enhanced noise immunity, as well as a unique weapon system that will significantly expand its combat capabilities when using conventional and nuclear weapons. In addition, it will have the NK-32 engines of the second series, which will significantly increase the range and duration of its flight.

At present the Tu-160, the design of which became the Soviet response to the American B-1 Lancer, is already considered as the world’s largest and heaviest supersonic aircraft. According to open data, its maximum speed is 2,230km per hour, while the flight range is 13,900km.

Finally, another of Russia’s developments in the field of hypersonics is a single-engined drone capable of flying both in the atmosphere and into outer space.

The drone’s engine is designed to serve as a booster, while the initial phase of the flight will be carried out with the help of a carrier aircraft. The new drone will be able to fly at an altitudes of up to 160km and reach speeds of up to Mach 7. In addition, it will be capable of launching satellites into orbit up to 500km.

The hypersonic drone will also be reusable, capable of performing at least 50 flights. Up to five flight tests of the new drone will be conducted in 2022-2023.

According to some Russian and foreign media reports, Russia regularly conducts tests of hypersonic weapons, while some analysts believe it has already reached the level of the US in this field which, in 2001, created the first X-43 hypersonic aircraft. According to some Russian media reports, in 2020-2025, 24 hypersonic spacecraft with nuclear warheads will be deployed at the Dombarovsky ground, where the Avangard tests took place.

Below: Tupolev design for supersonic bizjet.

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Experts from the Russian Ministry of Aviation predict the domestic demand for the new hypersonic passenger aircraft at 20-30 units per year. It will be priced at $100-120m. The Government hopes for significant export potential of the aircraft. Still, despite the optimism of the state, some Russian experts remain more sceptical regarding its prospects.

Andrei Kramarenko, a leading expert in the field of aviation at the Russian Higher School of Economics, in an interview to Russian state media recently said: “Supersonic aviation is a very expensive pleasure. An engine that can reach speeds above the speed of sound cannot be economical in terms of fuel consumption, as in the aviation industry there is a fight for every litre of kerosene.”

In addition, according to him, technical maintenance of such aircraft will be associated with huge costs that will be significantly higher than those associated with maintenance of traditional aircraft of the same class.

In the meantime, it is expected that the TsAGI project will not be a single project in the field of

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it was only until the high-performance fly-by-wire (FBW) fighters, able to go beyond 9G, such as the F-16, that G-LOC (G loss of conscious) became a recognised killer of pilots. Low-level high-G manoeuvring and jet fighter speeds were often a fatal combination for pilots who experienced G-LOC. For the RAF in particular, this was brought home recently by the death of a Red Arrows Hawk T1A pilot, Flt Lt Jon Egging, who died in 2011 in a crash that was attributed to the onset of G-LOC.

Today, modern fighters, such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, Lockheed Martin F-35 and others, can generate immense G-forces through their FBW flight controls – and this requires specialist equipment and clothing, such as anti G-trousers and socks and pressure jerkins which mitigate the flow of blood away from the brain. Additionally, pilots will use ‘anti-G-straining manoeuvres’ (AGSM) – a physiological effort to tense the lower abdomen to increase G-tolerance.


DEFENCEG force training

For fighter pilots, a crucial part of their training is the ability to conquer the forces (or G) that are generated when aircraft perform aerobatics. In small, transient doses, positive or negative

‘G’, for example on a rollercoaster or a humpback bridge, can be an enjoyable thrill. However, the sustained pressure, which can be up to nine times the force of gravity, can be a form of physical torture equivalent to a hard workout. In positive G manoeuvres, blood is pulled from the pilot’s head and brain towards their legs and feet, with the result of impaired vision and thinking, ‘greying out’ and finally ‘black-out’ (or ‘red-out’ in negative G) where the pilot loses consciousness for several seconds.

In previous eras, the limitations of flight control systems and structural integrity of aircraft meant that the fighter itself was likely to disintegrate before the flesh and blood human passed out and, while anti-G equipment was trialled in WW2,

Opened recently, the Royal Air Force now has a state-of-the-art centrifugeable to push its aircrew to the very limits by replicating the extreme G forces that today’s fighters can generate. TIM ROBINSON looks at the future of High-G training in the UK.

MoD

Above: The High-G facility at RAF Cranwell now means that ground-based ‘G’ training can match modern fighters.

Under pressure


Get ready for High-G

However, this is all to change with the introduction of a new £44m High-G centrifuge at RAF Cranwell which will provide G-tolerance training for UK fast-jet pilots. This device and its simulation software is built by Austria’s AMST and is operated by Thales (which also provides A400M and A330 Voyager simulators for the RAF) and takes High-G training to the next level. David Bolsover, Head of UK Military Training Services, Thales, UK, is the facility’s first General Manager, with the initial operating contract to run and manage the service for the next three years. The ten staff include engineers and instructor pilots (including ex-Vulcan display and Red Arrows pilot Bill Ramsey).

The new centrifuge features a powerful single arm and pod, able to deliver 9G in one second – representative of modern fighters. (The ultimate limit is 12+G used for equipment trials). The powered gondola is also able to induce negative Gs up to –3G. This means that it can replicate one of the most common causes of deadly GLOC – rapid transition from positive G, followed by negative G, followed by a quick return to positive G again.

At ‘idle’ the centrifuge spins at 1.6G as the ‘baseline’. Interestingly, the biggest challenge, says Bolsover, is in spinning up to this ‘simulated 1G’ as the 55° tilt of the capsule and level view of the runway in the simulator causes confusion in the inner ear. However, a simple trick has been for pilots to simply close their eyes until they are at the ‘virtual 1G’ and synchronised with the baseline spin. Once comfortably atuned to this 1.6G baseline, the pilot can then be subject to higher onset rates such as 9G in 1 sec.

Because of the risk, before a pilot goes flying a frontline fighter, G-tolerance will be assessed and resistance techniques trained in a ground centrifuge. This centrifuge, by rotating rapidly, is able to replicate the incredible G-forces found in flight.

Why is it needed?

Until now, this G-training for UK military fast-jet pilots was undertaken at the QinetiQ centrifuge at Farnborough. However, it has been apparent that this device, built in the 1950s, was no longer able to replicate the extreme performance of 4th and 5th generation fighters – and that it was well past its prime.

It was too slow, taking several seconds to ‘wind up’ the G to the maximum force of 9G. While modern fighters, such as the Typhoon, can see onset rates of 8/9G per sec and the NATO standard was 3G per sec, the old centrifuge was only able to manage 1G a second.

The ‘cabin’ also pivoted freely from the double arm, like a bucket of water being spun around and was unable to reproduce some of the more extreme forces generated by aerobatics.

It also had a limitation in that the pilot was ‘along for the ride’ with the scenarios being canned and no simulator function to teach the pilot which control inputs and manoeuvres result in what levels of G. There was no associated mental or piloting task for the pilot to focus on, apart from the anti-G ‘straining’ – a far cry from the rapid 3D problem-solving skills and situational awareness needed in a real dogfight.

The result, until now, has been a widening gap between the G-training provided on the ground and what was found in the air – with implications for safety and operational readiness.

Thales

The new Thales/AMST High-G centrifuge features a powered pod and integrated simulator.


As well as being more powerful and producing faster ‘G’ onset, the cabin of the centrifuge is also a far cry from the 1950’s era Farnborough device. Unlike the freely ‘swinging’ cabin of the old centrifuge, the pod on the High-G device is movable in two-axis and incorporates a flight simulator that the pilot is able to control. Triple cockpit displays can replicate Hawk T2, Typhoon or F-35 and can be swapped around in about an hour. Long desired by the RAF, this means that the Thales High-G facility can provide centrifuge training in dynamic flight simulation. Says Bolsover: “You’ve got a distraction from the anti-G straining manoeuvres. It becomes a natural thing while you are flying, rather than the major thing you are concentrating on.”

This gives added flexibility and means that the High-G centrifuge can be used to provide ‘canned’ pre-programmed profiles, or a dynamic flight controlled on the ‘fly’ by an external instructor’s station. In the ultimate test for ‘Top Guns’, a pilot in the centrifuge gondola can ‘fight’ a virtual enemy aircraft in a high-G dogfight, with the ‘bandit’ being flown by a veteran instructor sitting in the console control station. Short of flying in an actual close-in air combat session – this centrifuge, with the sweating and physical exertion – is the closest you can come to a pulling G in a real dogfight while still safely on the ground. Pilots can thus use this facility to practise one of the most common max-G manoeuvres – evading an incoming missile. By simulating a realistic 1vs1 dogfight, says Bolsover: “We are generating the G-profiles the doctors want.”

Feedback from this state-of-the-art facility has been exceptional, says Bolsover: “The Typhoon pilots

DEFENCEG force training

we’ve had in here and even more so, the ab-initios, think it’s brilliant. You are sat in a real cockpit, with real controls – it gives you a real sense of immersion.”

To generate these immense forces on the ground, this beast of a machine requires immense power. The facility at RAF Cranwell runs off a 33,000volt power supply off the grid, and boasts its own substation. The motor generates 33,200watts and 4,300hp to move the 38tonnes of machinery at high speeds.

With the facility designed to push the human body to the very limits, safety is paramount. The centrifuge features three stop modes – emergency full stop, medical stop, which slows the device gradually into a medical extraction and treatment room and a normal stop back to the 1.6G baseline.

Ironically this is the UK MoD’s second attempt to procure a high-G training facility for the RAF – an earlier £12m contract being cancelled in 2001 after the procurement deal collapsed in acrimony.

A duty of care

However, this High-G facility will not just be for those about to step into the cockpit of a Hawk T2, Typhoon or F-35 – but this critical training will now be extended for initial AGSM training for Grob Prefect primary trainers to Tucano/Texans, Hawk and then pre and recurrent OCU and fast-jet courses – with some 22 courses being available, as well as the current five-year FJ recurrent training. Says Bolsover: “It’s going to be at every level of training.”

The reasoning is twofold. First is that the RAF (and MoD) has now a wider ‘duty of care’ to today’s

MoDInternally the modular

cockpit can be swapped between Hawk T2, Typhoon and F-35.

QinetiQ

The old centrifuge at Farnborough dates from 1955.


aircrew than in previous years. The second is that these aircraft (particularly the Prefect, at +6/–4G is a far more dynamic trainer than the Tutor) are still fully aerobatic, yet students will fly them without the benefit of G-suits. Introducing this training earlier in the pipeline will thus increase safety across the board. Basic flight training students will start at 3G to begin with, before working up to 6G over around 12-15 minutes.

Says Bolsover: “It’s not really checking G-tolerance – it’s teaching pilots at the initial stages how to use their body, with anti-G straining manoeuvres and anti-G trousers, G-socks and (Typhoon and F-35) pressure breathing.”

He adds: “The beauty is that you can sit in the Typhoon cockpit and pull 9G on the flight model but we can limit the absolute G by software. For example, when we are doing a training course for a Typhoon OCU pilot, we will start them off at a limit of 4-5G and then gradually build them up. What we are looking for with Typhoon pilots is 15secs constantly at 9G.”

As well as RAF/Fleet Air Arm pilots in the fast-jet pipeline or undergoing recurrent training, the facility will also have other users. Bolsover revealed that ETPS (Empire Test Pilots’ School) students, who will fly the PC-21 and Gripen, will also train in the High-G centrifuge – both pilots and flight test engineers. The Red Arrows display team and the ‘blues’ mechanics who often fly in the rear seats, too, are expected to use the new facility. RAF military aviation medicine doctors, who will teach and advise aircrew on the risks of G-force will also be another set of users.

This advanced facility, one of only three similar devices in the world, may also be offered up for foreign students – either those already training with the RAF (for example the UK-Qatar 12 Sqn Joint Operational Squadron) or other allied air forces (such as the Royal Saudi Air Force or RAAF), looking for the most realistic G training for pilots of their 4th/5th generation fighters.

As well as the G-tolerance courses to push pilots to the very limits of human physiology, 50% of the centrifuge facilities work will also be used to test equipment and aircrew assemblies that also need to be certificated for high G-forces – for instance, the BAE Striker II HMD.

Summary

In short, this new High-G facility represents a leap in ground-based aviation medicine and training facilities in the UK – commensurate with the advanced 4th/5th generation fighters that the RAF (and Royal Navy) now flies. RAF Typhoon pilots are reportedly itching to use it, saying: ‘we can’t wait’. The High-G facility will not only improve safety at all levels of training but also, with its embedded modular simulation, help hone the combat edge of UK fighter pilots. Finally, this facility is also likely to become a draw for allied and coalition partners looking for the world’s most advanced G-force training – and the use of dynamic simulation to generate the ‘G profiles’ – is where the RAF is now leading the world.

Thales

The new High-G training facility at RAF Cranwell in the UK will help fast jet pilots train under more realistic simulated flight conditions.

RAeS Conference: The Future Reality of Flight Simulation, 11/12 June, RAeS HQ, London, UK.

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ATR

ATR produces two turboprop aircraft, the 50-seat ATR 42 and the larger 70-seat ATR 72, over 1,500 of which have now been delivered. While the original designs for both aircraft date back a number of years, ATR has been continually adding improvements.

Bombardier

The other principal manufacturer of commercial turboprops is Canadian manufacturer Bombardier with the Q400. Bombardier has produced regional aircraft since the 1990s. In 1992, Bombardier took over production of the de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8 twin-engine turboprops first introduced in 1984. The Dash 8 was produced in three sizes, the 40-seat -100 and more powerful -200, the 50-seat -300 and the 68-90-seat -400. Of these, only an upgraded version of the -400 remains in production as the Bombardier Q400.

Bombardier also produces regional jets and, in February, it announced the launch of a new 50-seat regional jet – the CRJ550.

Returning to the subject of turboprops, Bombardier has produced a total of 580 Q400s with a further 66 yet to be delivered. However, at the end of 2018, the manufacturer announced that it was selling its Q400 manufacturing programme to Longview Aviation Capital Corp. As part of the agreement, Longview will take over the assets,


AIR TRANSPORTTurboprops

While the age of large propeller-powered passenger aircraft ended with the advent of jets in the 1950s, smaller regional turboprops still continue in

operation over shorter routes. However, while 20 years ago this sector was well represented by manufacturers producing a wide range of commercial turboprops (including the Fokker 50, Saab 340/2000, BAE Systems Jetstream 41 and ATP, Embraer 120 and the Dornier 328), only two now remain. Currently, the only companies manufacturing regional turboprops are Franco-Italian company Avions de Transport Régional (ATR) and Canadian manufacturer Bombardier. However, the commercial turboprop market is now in a state of flux again with production of the Bombardier Q400 about to change ownership and a number of new and revamped projects in various stages of development.

Can the commercial turboprop still compete with new regional jet designs? BILL READ FRAeS reports.

Below right: The ATR ClearVision enhanced vision system.Below left: ATR 72-600 full flight simulator.

Return of the turboprop

ATR

ATR


configured to a number of different roles, the twin-engine SkyCourier will have a speed of up to 200kt and a range of 900nm.

Developing markets

ATR is confident that there will be a continuing demand for new turboprops. In a recently published report (Market Forecast (2018-2037)), ATR predicts a market for 3,020 turboprop aircraft in the up-to-90-seat regional market over the next 20 years. The report predicts that nearly 80% (2,390 aircraft) of this

intellectual property and type certificates not just for the Q400 but the entire Dash 8 programme, including the out-of-production 100, 200 and 300 series, as well as the rights to the de Havilland name and trademark. The sale is expected to be concluded by the second half of 2019.

Longview Aviation Capital is the parent company to Viking Air which also holds the type certificates for the de Havilland Twin Otter, as well as the Canadair CL215 and 415 series of water bombers – which it acquired from Bombardier in 2016. Viking has restarted production of a revamped version of the Twin Otter and provides support to operators of the other aircraft.

Other turboprop manufacturers

There are also a number of manufacturers still producing small turboprops, many of which are upgraded versions of earlier models. RUAG Aviation in Germany produces the 19-seat Dornier Do228NG, an upgraded version of the Dornier 228 turboprop. HAL in India also manufactures the Do-228 under licence from RUAG, mainly for the Indian military. Viking Air in Canada produces the 19-seat 400 Series Twin Otter,

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Recent air shows have seen significant evidence of the resurgence of turboprop aircraft.

a relaunched version of the de Havilland Canada DHC-6. In 2017 PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PTDI) flew the first 19-seat N219 turboprop developed from the CASA C212 Aviocar.

Meanwhile, US manufacturer Cessna is working on a new 19-seat turboprop which is expected to make its first flight this year. Designed to be

demand is expected to come from the 61-80 seat category with the remaining 20% (630 aircraft) from the 40-60 seat market. Demand for these aircraft will be divided regionally between emerging markets in Asia (43%), followed by Europe, Africa and Middle East (31%) and the Americas (26%).

ATR estimates that turboprop aircraft have the potential to generate 2,770 new routes over the next 20 years. Regional traffic is expected to grow by 4.5%, a year with around 30% of traffic in 2037 coming from routes that do not currently exist. ATR also estimates a demand over the next two decades for 460 turboprop freighters, comprised both of converted aircraft and new-build freighters, such as its own ATR 72-600F.

The turboprop advantage

The reason that turboprops have been able to continue to compete in a world dominated by jet-powered aircraft is due to a combination of cost and accessibility. According to ATR, a key factor in the

Above right: Publicity image of the passenger configuration of Cessna’s new 19-seat Skycourier which is expected to make its first flight this year.Left: Bombardier is in the process of selling its Q400 production to Longview Aviation Capital.

Cessna


market for turboprops is ‘regional connectivity’ where operators open new routes to smaller destinations. As well as operating on new direct regional routes in ‘traditional markets’, regional turboprops can also help to develop emerging markets where the most viable solutions for connecting people and transporting goods are turboprop air links.

Competing with jets

While turboprops have their own niche market on shorter routes where speed is less of a factor, they have faced increased competition from some of the new entrant and re-engined regional jets. Mark Dunnachie from ATR is not too concerned: “Rather than competing, turboprops and regional jets can have a more complementary relationship, as is evidenced by multiple airlines who choose to operate both types of aircraft.”

However, the degree to which regional jets compete with turboprops depends on the current fuel price. As oil prices rise, fuel-efficiency becomes more important and turboprops are able to compete more with regional jets.

Time for a new design?

Although continuously improved and upgraded, the three remaining regional turboprop aircraft, the ATR 42-600, ATR 72-600 and the Bombardier Q400, are all derived from older designs. The Q400 can trace its origins back to 1984 while the ATR 42 first entered service in 1985, followed by the ATR 72 in 1989.

In recent years, all the progress in the development of more efficient commercial aircraft has been for jet-powered aircraft, such as the all-new Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 or the redesigned and re-engined Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX. Could the turboprop market also benefit from a re-engined or all-new design?

Two ways in which a future or revamped turboprop could be upgraded are in the use of composite materials to make the airframe lighter and with the inclusion of new more efficient engines. However, it has been argued that any fuel savings gained from using composites will only be marginal, as turboprops spent less time in the air for each flight. There are also maintenance issues, as it is more costly and complicated to repair damage to composite components than to aluminium structures.

As for new engines, powerplant manufacturers have been watching the airframe manufacturers waiting to see who will jump first. Currently, both the Q400 and the two ATRs are powered by engines made by Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC). The ATR turboprops are powered by 2,750shp PW127s while Q400s rely on 5,000shp PW150s. P&WC is reported to be working on a Next Generation Regional Turboprop (NGRT) engine for a 70-to-90-seat aircraft which it claims will be 20% more efficient than

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AIR TRANSPORTTurboprops

existing engines with a 20% reduction in maintenance costs. Meanwhile, US engine manufacturer GE has also proposed a new turboprop engine named the CPX38, based on the 7,500shp GE38 engine used to power the Sikorsky CH-53K helicopter.

New designs

While there have been no announcements for new turboprop designs from in-production manufacturers, there have been a number of proposals from other countries with emerging economies which would benefit from an expansion in regional aviation. Proposals for new turboprop projects have come from India, China, South Korea and Indonesia, some of which have progressed further than others.

India

In 2010 the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) in India announced plans for a new indigenous Regional Transport Aircraft (RTA) turboprop to be manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). However, little has been heard of the project since 2016 when HAL appealed for partners to develop a 50-80-seat medium-sized turbofan/turboprop for regional transport with a possible military variant.

South Korea

Another proposal came from South Korea for a mainly composite construction turboprop, the DRA. In 2012 Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) was reported to be discussing a joint venture with Bombardier to develop a 90-seat turboprop by 2019 but the project did not progress.

China

One of the more advanced projects is the 70-seat MA700 turboprop being developed by AVIC in China. Built partially of composite materials, the MA700 was originally due to fly in 2018 but is still under

PT Dirgantara Indonesia’s N219 landing after a test flight in 2017.

RATHER THAN COMPETING, TURBOPROPS AND REGIONAL JETS CAN HAVE A MORE COMPLE– MENTARY RELATIONSHIP, AS IS EVIDENCED BY MULTIPLE AIRLINES WHO CHOOSE TO OPERATE BOTH TYPES OF AIRCRAFT

Mark DunnachieATR


construction. In March AVIC announced that the first MA700 is scheduled to roll out in September, with its first flight before the end of this year, followed by Chinese certification by 2021 and entry into service in 2022.

Indonesia

Another developing country with an active interest in turboprops is Indonesia. In August 2017, PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PTDI) flew the first 19-seat N219 turboprop developed from the CASA C212 Aviocar. Powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-42s, the N219 is intended for either civil or military applications. PTDI signed an agreement with Turkish Aerospace Industries in 2017 to work on the 50-seat N245 commercial turboprop developed from the CN235 military airlifter which PTDI co-developed with CASA.

In 1995, under its previous name of IPTN, PTDI produced two prototypes of a 50-seat turboprop called the N250 powered by Allison AE 2100C turboprop engines but production was not continued.

NA

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Show in June 2017, Ilyushin signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Pratt & Whitney Canada to provide PW127H engines for the restarted Il-114-100 programme. The current status of the programme is unclear, although P&WC announced at the ERA conference in 2018 that the first flight of the new Iluyshin Il114-100 was scheduled for 1Q 2019.

Room for a little one?

With existing and new manufacturers competing for the 50-90-seat turboprop market and several companies offering 19-seat turboprops, there appears to be a gap in the market for operators interested in 20-50-seat aircraft. Is there just no demand for such aircraft? Speaking at the European Regional Air Association annual conference last autumn before Bombardier announced the sale of Q400 production, Bombardier’s VP Sales, Europe, Russia and CIS, Ryan de Brusk, remarked that “it would need a technical breakthrough to make 20-30 seaters economical.” However, Mark Dunnachie from ATR does not agree. “In contrast, we see a very strong opportunity wave coming as smaller aircraft need to retire and up gauge,” he said. “There are still approximately 1,200 turboprop aircraft flying with configurations between 30 and 50 seats. It is clear that many of these smaller ageing aircraft will have to be replaced – or else essential connectivity will be lost.”

Electric option

If a technological breakthrough is required to revitalise demand for the 20-50-seat turboprop, then help could be on the way in the form of new proposals for electric or hybrid-electric-powered designs. Recent years have seen the launch of a number of projects looking into the development of a wide range of different-sized electric aircraft. Most of these are concentrating initially on small-sized aircraft but, once the technology has matured, larger designs may become feasible.

ATR is also interested in the possibilities offered by electric propulsion. “We are exploring new aircraft technologies, including a wide range of possible paths in the area of hybrid technologies,” said Mark Dunnachie. “One project we are engaged in is talking to Air New Zealand to explore the ecosystem around hybrid technologies. We are exploring and investigating a full ecosystem, rather than leaping into a new aircraft, since the technology is still developing.”

Conclusion

With the prospect of new designs, engines and even new sources of propulsion, the turboprop faces an interesting future.

Turboprop and turbofan variants of NAL Regional Transport Aircraft (RTA) turboprop design.

However, the 2016 Singapore Air Show showcased a model of the R80 – a proposed new regional turboprop to be manufactured in Indonesia which is reported to be based on the N250. Designed by Regio Aviasi Industries (RAI), the R80 is to have 80-90 seats, a maximum speed of 330kt and a range of around 800km. According to RAI’s website, a number of operators have expressed interest in acquiring R80s, including NAM Air, Kalstar, Trigana Air Services and Aviasta. The Jakarta Globe reported in February last year that RAI had signed a memorandum of understanding with Leonardo to assist with the development of the R80 which had completed design and feasibility tests and would now proceed to the development of the first prototype to fly in 2022.

Russia

There are also reports that Russia is considering restarting production of the 64-seat Ilyushin-IL-114 regional turboprop, 20 examples of which were built in the 1990s for Uzbekistan Airways. At the Paris Air

Recent turboprop orders

ATR Q4002016 36 252017 113 422018 52 32**Q400 orders up to 2018 Q3

RAeS Web: A longer version of this article can be found on: https://www.aerosociety.com/news/turboprop-revival/

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“Drones may be the trigger here but I think the major change we are looking at is the closer integration of the UK’s airspace and a convergence of the way in which we operate the airspace,” Andy Sage, drones lead at ATM provider NATS, told AEROSPACE.

He added that in order to address the risks of safely opening up airspace to drone operations alongside other aircraft, it is essential to have a clear picture of everything in the airspace. All parties require full visibility of where all the traffic, including general aviation, intends to fly.

“Alongside the CAA, we are advocating airspace integration, greater use of surveyed airspace and the electronic conspicuity of all users,” Sage noted.

“I think it will change the way in which the airspace is managed. I don’t think we’re necessarily talking about vast expanses of controlled airspace in the normal way but I think it will become more common place for all users to expect to file flight plans and be conspicuous in more volumes of UK airspace.”


AEROSPACEUAS integration

The rise in the number of unmanned aerial vehicles being used for both commercial and recreational purposes in the UK has led to considerations being made for the integration of all types of

this type of system into national airspace.While various efforts to facilitate this have been

progressing at a steady pace for some years now, the realisation that opening up a highly contested and relatively complex airspace to these new systems that vary in their size and performance was emphasised when drones were sighted near Gatwick airport in December 2018.

Although these were operating illegally and it was a clear breach of aviation safety, bringing the airport to a standstill over a number of days, since then discussions surrounding the ever-growing presence of this type of system operating so close to manned aviation have been taking place, as well as debates over the correct way in which they should be safely integrated into this structure.

BETH STEVENSON provides an overview of the latest progress in the UK tointegrate UAVs into regular airspace, for both commercial and military users.

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Sustained buzzing of Gatwick airport (below) by drone led to lengthy closures over Christmas 2018.

Sharing the skies

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being considered for adoption into the airspace, which will act as their manned counterparts do and integrate into air traffic control procedures.

One of the most significant planned introductions into UK airspace on this larger scale will be the Royal Air Force’s future Protector RG Mk1 that is based on the MQ-9B SkyGuardian platform, an aircraft that will have a maximum take-off weight of 12,500lb and will be able to be airborne for some 40h.

The most notable feature of the RAF’s new UAV will be its certification, however, as it is being developed to a STANAG 4671-compliant type certifiable standard that will allow it to fly in unsegregated airspace alongside other commercial aircraft.

It is a military aircraft, so integration work will be overseen by the Ministry of Defence and Military Aviation Authority, the CAA says, although the civil authority was involved in the first transatlantic flight of SkyGuardian that took place in 2018.

Throughout its development testing in the US, meanwhile, it is flown under an experimental certification granted by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Ahead of the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford last July, the UAV made a journey from the Grand Forks test site in North Dakota, US to the UK during a 24h 2min sortie, demonstrating that it could be operated under the remit of air traffic control when it entered British airspace.

It landed at the airfield under the same procedures that a manned aircraft would and manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) says work is continuing as a follow on to the flight.

“We have an ongoing comprehensive test and evaluation programme which continues apace,” Jonny King, Vice-President of General Atomics-UK, told AEROSPACE.

Levels of sky

There are multiple classes of airspace in the UK, each of which lend themselves to different types of UAV operation and, subsequently, different requirements for operating in that particular space will develop based on the impact they will have on the existing airspace structure.

The lower end of the UAV spectrum will involve small recreational drones or slightly larger commercial systems, which will generally fly below commercial air traffic and at lower altitudes alongside airspace typically afforded to general aviation users.

These come with their own challenges including the proximity they can fly to infrastructure and public places and guidance for this type of operation is being given to users by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to help operators with what is largely a common-sense approach to using the airspace.

This is different to airspace in which ATC governs the operations of aircraft that wish to fly within it, which can lend itself to more far-fetching operations, in that UAVs that would fly in controlled airspace would have the required technology onboard and safety cases to be able to operate akin to manned systems.

“Outside these areas, where other traffic operates that isn’t under the control of air traffic, or doesn’t transmit any signal on its position, then currently civil drones are limited to operating within the visual line of sight of the operator or within specifically restricted airspace,” a CAA spokesperson told AEROSPACE.

The Protector

On the higher end of the scale, much larger aircraft that are on par with manned aircraft in size are also

General Atomics MQ-9B SkyGuardian demonstrator conducted a key milestone when it flew across the Atlantic to the 2018 RIAT air show.


“The aircraft used for last summer’s trans-Atlantic flight was a company-owned MQ-9B SkyGuardian aircraft, so we worked with the CAA to licence flight in UK airspace. As Protector is a UK military aircraft system, the MAA is the certification authority in this case but the CAA is also involved in planning for integration into UK airspace.”

In November 2018 the company integrated a new Certifiable Ground Control Station that will help increase safety, as well as announcing that it had completed a flight with the Expeditionary

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AEROSPACEUAS integration

& Assessment (ASTRAEA), a government-industry collaboration to test how unmanned aircraft could integrate into national airspace.

ASTRAEA involved using a Jetstream regional airliner as a surrogate UAV, and explored both the technological and re gulatory requirements for integrating this type of aircraft into national airspace.

While this was a relatively pioneering approach to the issue of airspace integration in that it was somewhat ahead of the game in aiming to embrace this emerging industry from an early point, ASTRAEA

Command & Control system that was used to carry out a satellite communications-facilitated launch and recovery of the air vehicle.

Furthermore, in January 2019, General Atomics announced that it had teamed with BAE Systems to work on the airspace integration work for SkyGuardian.

“We have been scoping collaborative work that would be of mutual benefit for operating future RPAS in UK airspace; we have just signed a memorandum of understanding to embark on such work,” King added. “BAE Systems and GA-ASI self-fund their current respective elements of work, which focuses on operating RPAS in UK airspace, including developing concepts of operation and air traffic modelling and simulation. The work will be carried out within each organisation at their home locations.”

The ASTRAEA project

From 2006, BAE Systems was involved along with other British companies in Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation

was denied further government support in 2015 and the project then came to an end.

“ASTRAEA was a hugely successful programme and a lot was learned from all parties involved,” a BAE spokesperson told AEROSPACE.

They added that details surrounding how the work formerly carried out under initiatives such as ASTRAEA will be leveraged still needs to be determined and BAE Systems is assessing its potential to support GA-ASI in its integration of SkyGuardian into UK airspace and jointly developing the concept of operations of its use. “It is our joint intention to engage with UK MoD to bring the benefit of our experience to the table,” the spokesperson explained.

“This work is a great initiative to integrate the developmental US-based SkyGuardian RPAS into UK airspace. This is separate from the UK MoD’s ongoing Protector programme which is working across all UK airworthiness and airspace agencies to integrate the RAF’s next generation RPAS into all types of UK airspace and to recognised NATO standards.

BAE’s Jetstream test-bed was used to trial large UAV integration under the ASTRAEA project.

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“It is hoped that our BAE Systems work will support some of this activity in the future.”

At present, BAE Systems, GA-UK and GA-ASI are all exploring the potential to collaborate on the integration of SkyGuardian into UK airspace. They say it is not yet clear where the work will take place, but “it is almost certain that we will draw on both of BAE Systems and GA-ASI’s experiences in the UK and US”, BAE Systems said.

One feature that will be essential for integration into unsegregated airspace is the integration of a detect and avoid (DAA) system, which GA-ASI has developed and includes TCAS II, ADS-B and Due Regard Radar, something that the MoD is understood to be considering at present.

UK unmanned traffic management

With this capability it is expected that it will be able to operate as manned aircraft do, following the same procedures and essentially being no different to other aircraft operating in unsegregated airspace.

To this end, work is being carried out on an unmanned traffic management – or UTM – capability, something that a number of companies are working on, and NATS is working alongside Altitude Angel on a number of related areas.

“We’re working with Altitude Angel to effectively build the core UTM infrastructure that we have undertaken a commitment to our customers to implement and provide over our next regulatory period from 2020 onwards,” Sage added.

“That infrastructure will really be the first step towards the safe integration of drones alongside manned aviation. It’s aimed at providing an equitable access to the space for everybody, something we take for granted today, and we don’t want to undermine that. It’s to provide a framework for drone operators and other providers to come and compete in the marketplace on a level playing field.”

Better visibility

The work with Altitude Angel resulted in the two parties developing the so-called Drone Assist app, a way by which drone operators can access an interactive map of the airspace to see where others are flying, as well as enabling them to offer the location of where they are also flying.

This is so far a voluntary facility – although in excess of 100,000 users have registered in less than two years of the app being offered – but represents a willingness of users to have access to a scaled version of an integrated airspace picture that is common among other classes of airspace.

A user portal, is offered to operators to use to request access to certain parts of the airspace. “I think that the bulk of the people who use our

application today are individual consumers for whom the app provides all of the information they need to fly responsibly and safely within the law,” Sage added. “I think those that access our airspace user portal for formal access into our airspace are professional users and today, flying VLOS, they are a mixture of inspection services, property services and other professional applications.”

Sage added that, as the UK’s air navigation services provider (ANSP), it has a duty to explore the whole range of measures relating to safety and is an advocate alongside the CAA of education campaigns for the safe use of drones.

It is additionally supportive of a new measure introduced by the Government in 2019 that has seen the UAV flight restriction zone surrounding airports extended from 1km to 5km.

“We are working with airports evaluating and trialling automated tools that will help them deal with what we expect will be an increased volume of flight requests coming in,” Sage added. “What we don’t want to do is make it difficult for members of the public to gain approval from busy teams in airport towers and run the risk of flights going ahead without being approved in the correct manner. We’re not trying to stop people from flying. We are showing that this will only happen with the correct approval from the airport. We owe it to the public to make that an easy process to follow.”

For professional users, NATS is encouraging potential operators to discuss with the ANSP the type of beyond visual line of sight work they wish to carry out, including the types of system they would wish to use and the ranges at which they would want to operate.

“We want to understand the distances people want to operate at, the missions they want to carry out and the platforms they want to use, because those things together will determine how we safely allow those operations and what we need to put in place.”

Altitude Angel, released new-look restricted airspace maps for the UK and Northern Ireland (including Gatwick, left) ahead of tougher airport drone no-fly zone regulations now in force.

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RAeS Conference: Airspace Access: Integrated or Segregated?, 9/10 October, RAeS HQ, London, UK.

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Private investment in space ventures has increased rapidly since 2013, with a cumulative total now in excess of $16bn. To date there are well over 370 registered NewSpace companies bidding for business in launch services, Earth observation and telecommunications, as well as more exotic offerings, such as space mining and burial services. Investment in satellite-related business has been especially evident, with over $1bn last year alone, over 50% of the total. In turn, there has been a spurt of new launch sites offering locations for rapid response to commercial demand or to support space tourism. There are also signs that the NewSpace concept is attracting some of the bigger battalions in the space industry and other well-funded players to develop hardware, infrastructure and associated space services. Finally, while new players have found support from the usual primordial soup of hedge fund money, there are signs that the temptation of a rapidly growing market are attracting more conventional capitalist investment – and from the ‘private’ sector in China.


SPACEFLIGHTCommercial spaceflight

It is hard to pin down exactly when NewSpace began – although the advent of SpaceX and the promise of cheap launches would be a good bet. Another possible milestone would be the emergence of ‘smallsats’,

whether as individuals or as constellations. The characteristics of NewSpace are easier to define: a private space industry, independent of governments and other public agencies, with entrepreneurially-minded companies developing faster, cheaper, and commercially oriented space products and services. The predominant business model is Silicon Valley start-up rather than Houston-NASA, eschewing political and prestige motives and the bureaucratic processes associated with public space – less Buck Rogers, more Roy Rogers (a US burger chain). It should be said that NewSpace does not reject the government dollar, pound or Euro – some of its leading proponents have grandiose ambitions to populate Mars – but the overwhelming philosophy is pragmatic and money-making (at least eventually).

Prof KEITH HAYWARD FRAeS charts the meteoric rise of the ‘NewSpace’revolution as it continues to disrupt the commercial space community.

Blue Origin’s fully reusable New Shepard space vehicle rolls out to the launch pad at the company’s West Texas launch site.

NewSpace matures

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Planet Labs satellite imageof a wildfire, in California. The image shows the fire’s size, the path it had burned through, wind direction and, of course, its exact location. This timely and accurate information is essential for wildfire teams in safely containing a blaze.


Communications and the Internet of Things

Providing an infrastructure for the Internet of Things, linking web-driven hardware systems, such as the ‘smart home’, is another new market for the Smallsat constellation. Centring on satellites as little as 3kg, highly sensitive terminals, over a dozen proposed or actual constellations are aiming to provide low cost global connectivity. Start-up funding requirements are relatively modest, $4-15m is the current range, with prices for customers as low as a few dollars plus initial equipment costs. With constellation replenishment costing between $3-8m a year, viability will depend on generating a huge number of customers and creating entirely new markets for cheap connectivity. Given that there are less complex terrestrial alternatives emerging to meet the demand, the satellite providers will have to show that the promise of coverage anywhere in the world will be the superior option.

Smallsats and constellations are the future

Smallsats are satellites of low mass and size, usually less than 500kg (1,100lb) and ‘microsatellite’ or ‘microsat’ which are satellites with a wet mass between 10 and 100kg (22 and 220lb). While smallsats may be used individually, the primary application is to form part of a ground managed and controlled constellation.

The market for smallsats is, to say the least, burgeoning. Euroconsult predicts that some 7,000 smallsats will be launched over the next decade compared to the 1,200 or so launched since 2008. This implies some $38bn worth of business. Constellations – around 50 separate operators – will account for 80% of the smallsat market. The bulk of new investment is going into Earth observation and resource management and telecommunications for web-based activities.

Earth observation

The global geospatial information services market is already in the region of $5bn annually. This is set to grow rapidly as more customers spot the utility of space-based imagery and multispectral analysis. As with much of NewSpace, the arrival of cheaper and easier to access services creates a cycle of growth, as the pioneers trigger more players and customers. With the future information services market numbers in excess of $100bn a year, staking share with space-based delivery is an incentive to risk-taking new entrants. Market forecasts of $7bn in space-based delivery by the end of the next decade are mouth wateringly enough – and small satellites will take nearly a quarter of this market compared to today’s 11%. According to Euroconsult, demand is also growing for much higher-resolutions, which could be worth some $1.7bn a year by 2027, up from $938m in 2017.

The key is to link hardware availability with a packaged service. Planet Labs, the $300m global imagery company, can access over 130 satellites. This gives it an ideal platform for quick response services. This was shown dramatically during the recent Californian forest fires. Within a day, Planet was downloading visual images from its constellation of small satellites and infrared from its larger platforms to the California Office of Emergency Services. This sort of reaction time is a key selling point to subscribers, as well as its easy-access use of cloud storage and other web-delivery. It is in stark contrast to the timetabled, directed government agency requirement. To an extent, part of the challenge is to show customers that they really do need and can benefit from this kind of space-based material. This is the art of market creation.

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Other issues will also have to be addressed. Companies will develop or contract out monitoring and control infrastructure. Space debris in low-Earth orbit will inevitably become even more problematic with the proliferation of smallsats (although a Canadian start-up is offering a commercially available space situational awareness capability). Frequency allocation and interference may become something of a free-for-all, as the global regime governing the geo-stationary world has no jurisdiction lower down. There is also the question of ensuring that potential users can access the signal. The availability of cheap receiving devices is still problematic, as currently complex moveable dishes are required to receive satellite broadband signals.

Here come the big battalions

It is not only the ‘little guys’ moving into NewSpace; the Amazon-Lockheed initiative to offer ground station services to the burgeoning space entrepreneurial sector marks a significant juncture

SUCCESS IN NEWSPACE STILL LOOKS LIKE A WHITE-KNUCKLE RIDE WITH START-UPS TRYING TO STAY IN THE GAME AS COMPETITORS DROP OUT – A SORT OF ‘LAST SATELLITE ORBITING’?


in the business. Servicing constellations – controlling and monitoring, as well as downloading data with global coverage – is not cheap. So, two giants of the aerospace service industries have come up with a fee-based ground infrastructure delivery system. Amazon Web Services (AWS), through its boss Jeff Bezos, is already part of the NewSpace community while Lockheed Martin Space is a big player in conventional launchers and satellites. There are others offering ground station services, including

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SPACEFLIGHTCommercial spaceflight

Major aerospace players have invested heavily in the NewSpace playground.

Above: An artist’s conception shows Millennium Space Systems’ Altair satellite.

A decrease in NASA’s spending has created opportunities for a boom in private spending on space projects.

manufacturing satnav devices and providing mapping or TV delivery and, while ground station activity may not be as lucrative as some of these activities, it beats building large satellites or launching them.

There are also signs that the aerospace primes are following the same path taken in response to the arrival of the drone – buy into the innovation by acquiring an emerging smallsat company. Last year, Boeing bought Millennium Space Systems and put it under its Phantom Works division, presumably to protect it from the negative affects of a clawing big company bureaucracy. This followed Lockheed Martin’s investment in Terran Orbital and, of course, Airbus Defence and Space’s acquisition of Surrey Satellites. Airbus has also linked up with other NewSpace companies to market services and to provide hardware. Along with the Virgin Group, it has also invested in the OneWeb constellation to provide in-flight connectivity.

Elsewhere in Europe, Thales and Leonardo have jointly invested in a smallsat constellation start-up. The aim is to capitalise on both the new markets of NewSpace but also to offer alternatives to existing customers in public markets, including the military and security services. The start-ups provide the expertise and agility, the primes knowledge of how to deal with large procurement bureaucracies.

... and the Chinese

Not content with its rapid emergence as a major player in conventional state-funded space activities, the Chinese now appear to be encouraging NewSpace entrants. Since 2014 and an important change in Chinese law, a small number of private companies have begun to launch and operate satellites. Although still closely aligned to national policy and state agencies, the private sector offers NewSpace flexibility and value-for-money. The aim is also to tap the same multi-billion telecommunications and Earth resources markets that are spurring Western investment in the sector. However, with the current furore surrounding the Chinese communications giant Huawei in mind, there will be the inevitable concerns about the security of a Chinese system, as well as the general potential for political interference.

Somewhere to launch

With Euroconsult predicting an average annual launch rate approaching 1,000 smallsats a year

specialist start-ups, such as Tokyo-based Infosteller but AWS promises to deep pocket most of the competition.

The AWS venture follows a well-trodden track in the space industry. The largest share of the space value chain starts on the ground, whether this is

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by 2030, business should also be good for launch service providers. This will present opportunities for existing players offering piggyback launches on big launchers as well as new rocket manufacturers offering bespoke services. The Russian Glavkosmos, for example, is offering a smallsat launch aggregator service. Other new entrants are also likely to include the space tourist companies providing a launch platform.

Equally interesting is the development of new, privately funded (or at least partially privately funded) launch sites. Sweden is planning a site in Kiruna and last July, the UK Government announced it was selecting not one of the six airports from an earlier shortlist but a new vertical launch site with a contribution of $3.3m towards the estimated cost of $13.5m on the A’Mhoine Peninsula in the Sutherland region of Scotland’s northern coast.

There are already eight extant or planned launch sites in the US and the advanced projects agency DARPA has kicked off a competition to identify sites for quick response launches. DARPA is negotiating with the American regulator FAA to obtain blanket licences to cover launches from the winners. Six US locations have also bid for spaceports to support space tourism and three potential centres have been listed in South Asia.

The new sites’ offer is largely based on availability and lower prices. The established conventional launch sites are often booked up years ahead and geared to the big launchers and their service providers. Smaller launch sites claim to be better suited to the smallsat market. Some are also looking to support the space tourist sector but the real challenge is the regular run of NewSpace activity. Interestingly, a number are in the higher latitudes, which would penalise heavy lift business but the smallsat and its specialist launcher companies are more likely to value quicker responses and a shorter wait for a slot.

Time will tell if these characteristics will outweigh the acceleration benefits offered by equatorially located sites. However, the emergence of a new set of launch sites underlines the opportunities associated with NewSpace.

Prospects for NewSpace

The question remains how many of the space start-ups will last the course. There is a feeling of déjà vu hanging over these enterprises, an echo of the general ‘Silicon Valley’ approach of sinking money in high-risk activity with little immediate return on

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capital. Certainly the bulk of NewSpace cash is coming from American punters, with Europeans and Asians only just beginning to pick up speed.

The US Commerce Department chief, Wilbur Ross, a former banker, is trying to encourage the more established sources of funding to enter the NewSpace sector but, so far, the big financial players are still loath to put money in what is still seen as an exotic playground. SpaceX has managed to raise another $500m but Elon Musk’s enterprise now has the confident look of an established company, with a solid position in the US Government market. A more salutatory example is the way Deep Space Mining blew several millions without a single launch to its credit.

The sums involved in some of the NewSpace schemes are breath-taking. For example, OneWeb’s initial phase will cost in excess of $2bn, with billions more needed to complete a planned 650 satellite constellation. Success in NewSpace still looks like a white-knuckle ride with start-ups trying to stay in the game as competitors drop out – a sort of ‘last satellite orbiting’?

There is undoubtedly money to be made – eventually. The business case for a cheaper, more generally available set of space-based applications is well made in theory. There are also some important additional factors at work. The first is the early entry of established space industry giants sensing a growing revenue stream from new products and markets as some old concepts, such as the large geostationary comsat, face challenges from NewSpace and terrestrial alternatives (a sign of the times perhaps is the fact that only 14 new geostationary comsats have been ordered over the past two years, two-thirds the average annual rate over the past decade). The trend towards smaller, near-Earth platforms could accelerate as governments are tempted by cheaper global communications and surveillance coverage for military or security missions.

So expect market churn, company casualties, and some expensive failures but NewSpace is part of the future of the space industry and the delivery of space-based services.

Top: A SpaceX rocket is lowered into position to be tested.

Above: On 27 February a Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Spaceport in French Guiana, carrying the first six satellites in OneWeb’s constellation. These were successfully deployed once in orbit.

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of geese. Fortunately, thanks to the skill of pilots Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles, there was no loss of life.

Bird deterrents

To avoid the risk of bird strikes, many methods have been devised to try to discourage birds from flying near airports. Since the majority of incidents occur during take-offs and landings, deterrence methods have concentrated on various ways to discourage birds from being near airports. These include removing physical features from airports that attract birds, which provide food sources or areas of water to land on, deploying netting or spikes to discourage birds from roosting, displaying effigies of predators, loud noises, pyrotechnics, chemical repellents or using trained raptors.


GENERAL AVIATIONDrones and bird control

It is a well-known maxim that birds and aircraft don’t mix. According to figures published by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) there were 142,000 wild-life strikes at US airports between 1990

and 2013, with birds being involved in 97% of the reported cases. In some cases, the damage was minor but, in others, the damage caused was sufficient to adversely affect the safety of the aircraft – particularly the cases in which larger birds were sucked into engines and caused them to flameout. Even in these cases, the aircraft was usually able to continue to fly and return safely to an airport but there have been incidents in which aircraft have been brought down by bird strikes. The most well-publicised bird strike incident of recent years was the US Airways’ A320 which ditched into the Hudson River in 2009, having lost power in both engines after flying into a flock

BILL READ FRAeS looks at how drones are being used to deter or divert birds away from airports and also how microlights are being used to encourage migrations of endangered birds.

Flocks away


Technology (KAIST), which allows a single drone to herd an entire flock of birds away from an area of airspace without harming individual birds or the flock’s formation.

Inspired by the 2009 ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ incident involving US Airways Flight 1549, the researchers looked into ways that airspace could be protected from birds by using technology in autonomy and robotics. Looking in more detail at bird behaviour, the scientists concluded that using a piloted drone to herd birds away from an airspace varied in success depending on the position of the drone. If the UAV was too far away, then it did not affect the behaviour of the flock. If the drone got too close, the flock could scatter and become uncontrollable.

Successful herding depends on the ability to keep a flock together while shifting its direction of travel. Each bird in a flock reacts to changes in the behaviour of the birds nearest to it. Effective herding requires an external threat – in this case, the drone – to position itself in such a way that it encourages birds along the edge of a flock to make course changes that then affect the birds nearest to them, who in turn affect birds farther into the flock, and so on, until the entire flock changes course. The positioning has to be precise; if the external threat gets too zealous and rushes at the flock, then the birds will panic and act individually, not collectively.

One of the researchers, Soon-Jo Chung, worked on an earlier bird-control project to build a flapping robot mimicking the flight of a falcon to use as a natural-looking deterrent. However, he discovered that a quadrotor drone was just as effective as the biomimicking robot.

In the latest project, Chung and his research team created a mathematical model

Drones vs birds

In recent years there have been some interesting developments in the use of drones designed to repel birds. Bird-X has developed the BirdXPeller drone designed to combine the visual and physical presence of a flying predator while emitting naturally-recorded predator cries and distress calls.

Another company, Clear Flight Solutions, produces the Robird flapping-wing drone designed to scare off birds by mimicking the appearance and flight of a peregrine falcon. According to the company, the Robird was deployed in a trial at Edmonton International Airport, Canada where it logged around 200 flights over a two-month period, being used in conjunction with additional bird control solutions to keep over 10,000 birds away from active runways.

Herding birds

Drones are also being deployed more scientifically not to scare birds away but to herd them away from sensitive areas – such as airports. A recent study published in IEEE Transactions on Robotics describes a project developed by CalTech, Imperial College London and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and

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The presence of the drone will affect the behaviour of the closest bird which will fly closer to the next bird which, in turn, will affect the behaviour of the rest of the flock.


of flocking dynamics which described how flocks build and maintain formations, how they responded to threats along the edge of the flock, and how they then communicated that threat through the flock. The algorithms were originally designed to model the herding of sheep and expanded to work in three dimensions rather than two.

Using this mathematical description of flocking behaviours, the researchers then looked at how

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GENERAL AVIATIONDrones and bird control

descend vertically and continue towards the prohibited area.

The calculations proved to be most effective with certain numbers and size of birds but the team plans to conduct further research into how multiple drones could deal with multiple flocks. The researchers also looked at the potential use of robotic drones to automatically herd birds.

Above: Whooping cranes follow an ultralight on a journey from Wisconsin to Florida as part of Operation Migration.

Above from left to right:Aerial view from the South Korean project showing a UAV getting birds to change direction.The same view as above showing relative motion of birds and a herding UAV.From Operation Migration – something not every pilot has to do – to encourage the birds to follow the microlights, handlers interacted with the young cranes using puppets.

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flocks would respond to approaching external threats and then created a new algorithm to show ideal flight paths for drones to move a flock away from protected airspace without dispersing it.

The algorithm was given a practical test using a drone to divert a flock of live birds near a field in Daejeon, South Korea. The experiments involved flying a quadrotor in the vicinity of flocks. Two rounds of experiments were conducted during two different seasons – the first involving egrets and the second with loons. Two drones were deployed, one to act as the ‘herder’ and perform different manoeuvres around the flocks as a pursuer and a second camera surveillance drone which hovered at a higher altitude to record the trajectories of the pursuer drone and the birds.

The researchers found that a single UAV could keep a flock of dozens of birds out of a designated airspace. The experiments were more successful when the drone approached the flock relatively slowly, to a distance of around 30m, causing the birds to change direction horizontally. If the drone approached the flock faster or closer, then the birds would

Follow that plane

Instead of using aircraft to scare birds away, there has also been a number of initiatives designed to encourage rare or endangered birds to follow aircraft to migrate or move to new habitats. From 2011 to 2015 a project called Operation Migration in the US involving conservationists working with the US Fisheries and Wildlife Services, encouraging flocks of rare endangered whooping cranes to follow behind microlights to migrate 1,285miles from Wisconsin to Florida over a period of three months.

Having learned the route, the birds then returned north the following spring and the number of cranes began to rise. However, the project was discontinued after the US Fisheries and Wildlife Services changed its policy and ruled that the method was ‘too artificial’.

In 2010, scientists in Austria conducted a similar project to encourage the rare northern bald ibis to migrate from Germany to Italy by following a microlight. After experiencing some initial difficulties in training the birds to follow the microlights, the Waldrapp team also succeeded in getting the birds to complete the 1,300km journey.

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41APRIL 2019

Afterburner

42 Message from RAeS- President“One of my themes for this Presidential year is low-carbon aviation. 2018/19 has seen huge progress in that area, with more and faster change to come. In October 2018, LoganAir announced its aim to operate electrically-powered conversions of its Britten-Norman Islanders on the Orkneys inter-island service by 2021, probably the first full-electric scheduled passenger aircraft service in the world.”

- Chief Executive“The members had some very useful discussions on the future direction of the Society in areas as varied as, diversity and inclusion, the future of the Centennial Scholarships and the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

44 Book ReviewsA Few Planes for China, The Royal Air Force, Hucknall, The Economics of Airlines and The Earth Gazers.

47 Library AdditionsBooks submitted to the National Aerospace Library.

48 ObituaryRon John Kennett FRAeS.

50 Minutes of the 153rd AGMIn advance of the 154th RAeS AGM on Thursday, 16 May, the Society publishes the minutes of last year’s AGM.

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

54 2019 AnniversariesPeter Elliott, Chair of the RAeS Historical Group, summarises the many anniversaries occurring this year.

55 Corporate Partner EventsUpcoming events for Corporate Partners.

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A self portrait of a pilot from RAF Marham, taken while on a low-level training mission in a Tornado GR4 of 31 Squadron. MoD/Crown copyright 2015.

Diary 22 May

RAF Mental Health Services: Organisation. Delivery. Impact. Wg Cdr Elizabeth Ashton, Consultant Psychologist, RAF & WO James Parkin RNMH BSc Hons, Specialist Nurse Advisor Mental Health, RAF Aerospace Medicine Group Lecture

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42

Message from RAeSOUR PRESIDENT

Rear Admiral Simon Henley

IT’S BECOMING A ‘WHEN’ QUESTION NOT AN ‘IF’ QUESTION

Afterburner

AEROCHALLENGE 2019

One of my themes for this Presidential year is low-carbon aviation. 2018/19 has seen huge progress in that area, with more and faster change to come. In October 2018, LoganAir announced its aim to operate electrically-powered conversions of its Britten-Norman Islanders on the Orkneys inter-island service by 2021, probably the first full-electric scheduled passenger aircraft service in the world. Working in partnership with Cranfield Aerospace to convert existing airframes to electrical power, the short journey lengths on that route make them ideal to introduce all-electric aircraft in a way which can inform regulation, safety and logistic considerations within the bounds of existing technologies.

In parallel, the world of eVTOL aircraft is making steady progress towards reality. The Airbus Vahana aircraft achieved the milestone of 50 flights at full scale in February, totalling over 5hrs airborne and demonstrating flight lengths of seven minutes at speeds in excess of 50kt. The Boeing PAV technology demonstrator, built in co-operation with Aurora Flight Sciences, flew for the first time on 23 January. Bell’s VP for Innovation, Scott Drennan, stated this month: “It’s becoming a ‘when’ question not an ‘if’ question” as Bell’s mock-up of their Nexus Hybrid aircraft was unveiled at the Vertiflite conference in Atlanta.

Electrification of larger aircraft is also progressing fast. Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens have taken delivery of the BAe 146 airframe to be converted to substitute one inboard engine (at least initially) to a hybrid propulsion system with an electrically-driven fan engine capable of being powered by either stored battery energy, electricity generated from an on-board gas-turbine/generator combination, or a mixture of both. The E-FanX project is progressing towards design reviews with a projected first flight in the very early 2020s.

All of this work is incredibly exciting and showcases the exploratory nature of the work needed to wean aircraft off fossil-fuel propulsion. Already emerging is the realisation that it’s not just battery capacity and power density that is critical to making electric propulsion viable for short-haul aircraft but also the management of heat generated in generators, control circuits and electric motors. In parallel with the technical development we must progress the regulatory environment to create appropriate qualification and certification standards, and wider air traffic management and other aspects to maximise the benefit of more/all-electric and fully autonomous aircraft.

Against this background, the announcement by Rolls-Royce that it will not be offering an engine for the new Boeing NMA if and when such a project is announced is significant. Rolls-Royce’s current engineering efforts towards future gas turbine engines are focused on the UltraFan, aimed at markedly improving efficiency on large wide-body aircraft. Could it be that the new Boeing aircraft will be the last of the narrow-bodied programmes to use fossil-fuelled propulsion, and Rolls-Royce’s re-entry into the narrow-body aircraft engine market sometime in the future will be electrically-powered?

Changing the subject completely, as I write this article, the SpaceX Dragon capsule has successfully splashed down after its mission to the International Space Station, opening up a path to the restarting of manned missions utilising US launchers developed in the fast-evolving industry whereby new launcher systems are developed by a combination of private and state funding but unencumbered by the bureaucracy and delays which pure state-run projects never seem able to avoid. Aeronautics and space have never been short of excitement but these are exhilarating times indeed!


AeroChallenge 2019, hosted by the RAeS Young Persons Committee and kindly sponsored by Leonardo, took place on 27 February at No.4 Hamilton Place. AeroChallenge is the Society’s annual aerospace themed quiz covering a wide range of current and historical themes and incorporating the ever-popular design and build rounds.

This year’s event attracted a record number of 21 teams comprised of students, apprentices and early-career professionals. Universities were represented by teams from City University, Imperial College, Queen Mary, University of Hertfordshire,

Bucks New University and Cardiff and Vale College. Industry teams were drawn from BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Leonardo, GKN and Martin-Baker.

The final round was a straight shoot-out between finalists Imperial College and the Leonardo Lynx team. With scores level at 5-5 it was the Leonardo team that answered the tie-break question by correctly naming Howard Hughes’ iconic flying boat. The Leonardo team were duly crowned and returned to Yeovil as worthy champions of AeroChallenge 2019.

APRIL 2019 43i fFind us on Twitter Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

Sir Brian Burridge

OUR CHIEF EXECUTIVE

As I mentioned last month, the Society’s Annual General meeting will be held on 16 May at Hamilton Place. Voting is now open for the Council Election and you should have received an email giving you details of how to vote from our election provider, mi-voice. If you have not received such an email, first check your mail box settings to ensure that it hasn’t been incorrectly identified as spam, and if this isn’t the case and you are a voting member, then call mi-voice on +44 2380 76 3978. Voting turnout continues to increase, last year it was around 24%. This year it would be good if we could exceed this figure, so please cast your votes for those candidates you believe will best represent you in Council.

On 4 March, we held the final Council and Board of Trustees’ meetings of the current Presidential year. The members had some very useful discussions on the future direction of the Society in areas as varied as, diversity and inclusion, the future of the Centennial Scholarships and the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. At the AGM on 16 May, Professor Jonathan Cooper will take over for the following 12 months.

As is our custom, the Society’s 2019 Banquet will follow the AGM. This year we look forward to welcoming Airbus CEO Designate, Guillaume Faury, as our Guest of Honour and after-dinner speaker. Ticket and table sales are coming in fast, so we recommend that you book your place now if you have not already done so that you can join us for an evening of fine dining and excellent networking at the InterContinental London Park Lane.

A significant highlight in the event calendar was the RAeS Lithium Battery Conference organised by the Flight Operations Group, entitled ‘A Rising Risk in Aviation’. This is a highly topical and important issue, not least given the release of new US regulations on the eve of the conference. The event brought together regulators, investigators, industry, operators and the science community. As such, it provided delegates with the most up to date information about the hazards posed by lithium batteries including the challenges of early detection of over-heating. Overall, it added much to the Society’s body of knowledge and was a credit to Flight Operations Group in both the selection of the subject and the orchestration of the agenda.

Over the past two years the National Aerospace

Library (NAL) has trawled the Society’s archive to release podcasts of the best of the Society’s lectures from earlier years together with interviews with test pilots and others aerospace pioneers. Our recordings have been played over 38,000 times and the project has only been possible thanks to the work of NAL volunteer, Mike Stanberry FRAeS, and through a grant from the RAeS Foundation. To listen to the full set, plus a selection of other more recent Society lectures from Hamilton Place and the Branches, visit www.aerosociety.com/podcasts or subscribe to AeroSociety podcasts on iTunes.

By the time that you read this, our status within the EU will have become clear. As I write, it is by no means clear whether we will leave the EU on the 29 March as originally planned. What is clear though is that the aerospace and aviation sectors will have to be prepared for an uncertain time in the immediate future. There remain many practical questions about the legal and operational implications of the disentanglement process that will affect the industry globally. On 4 April, our Air Law Specialist Group and a number of distinguished speakers will explore the commercial impact of these changes on the aviation industry to identify where remaining uncertainty exists and consider its legal implications.

Meanwhile, our work on charting the Society’s way through the Fourth Industrial Revolution continues. We are now participating at senior level in the key working groups grappling with Urban Air Mobility and the Brunel Challenge on High Value Design. From our perspective, the former poses some hard questions of certification, safety and regulation while the latter is causing us to consider how the role of the engineer of the future will change. At present, we are only seeing the tip of what is likely to be a very large iceberg, but we do need to be in the driving seat as things develop rather than being passive observers. The implications for our sectors are profound.

Ending on something of a sombre note, the loss of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 on 10 March reminds us that aviation is a serious business and our condolences go to all those affected by the accident. It also serves as a reminder of the importance and value of the safety culture that been created in the aviation and aerospace sectors over many years.

MEANWHILE, OUR WORK ON CHARTING THE SOCIETY’S WAY THROUGH THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION CONTINUES

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Book Reviews


Afterburner

A FEW PLANES FOR CHINA

A KC-10 Extender refuels a Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 so that it can sustain airborne operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. USAF.

This is an impressive revisionist monograph that unpicks one of the more mythic events in the history of WW2 in Asia: the founding of the ‘Flying Tigers’

The Birth of the Flying TigersBy E Buchan

ForeEdge, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Suite 250, Lebanon, NH 03766, USA. 2017. xv; 262pp. Illustrated. $35. ISBN 978-1-61168-866-5.

This is an impressive revisionist monograph that unpicks one of the more mythic events in the history of WW2 in Asia: the founding of the ‘Flying Tigers’, the nickname for the American Volunteer Group (AVG) that operated in China in the years before Pearl Harbor.

Buchan argues that the role of airpower in shaping US-China defence relations during the period of the Chinese Nationalist government’s rule (up to 1941) has been ill-conceived. She counters the romantic view that the US started very early on to create a Chinese air power capability that would, eventually, come to serve it in the face of a war with Japan. Buchan then gives an alternative reading based on extensive archival research in several languages. Essentially, she says, the American administrations (particularly that of Roosevelt) had a purely commercial interest in supplying air power to China and that it was only very late in the East Asian crisis that moves were made that were more strategic in nature.

In fact, it was British assistance, rather than American, that was most important to China until close to the date of Pearl Harbor (in her pithy phrase: “The man behind the Flying Tigers was ultimately Winston Churchill”). She also illuminates a painful reality: Chinese pilots were not ‘excellent’ (as one report suggested); they were badly-trained and caused as much destruction as they did useful work.

Claire Chennault, the figure often called the founder of the AVG, is also subject to revision. Buchan shows that he was not the first person to initiate the AVG and highlights tactical flaws in Chennault’s work with the Chinese. She places some of the blame for the poor state of the Chinese air force on Chennault’s shoulders and argues that, after 1938, Chennault was in fact rather less important in the shaping of military policy than his own narrative suggested. Overall, Buchan suggests, there was little real intention by Chiang Kai-shek after 1938 to create a really strong Chinese air force. In fact, his intention was to make gestures that would help him to gain greater foreign air support.

This is a compellingly-written and deeply-researched account that will be of great interest to all scholars of the history of airpower in WW2.

Rana MitterDirector of the University China Centre,Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, University of Oxford

USAAF Liberator bomber crosses the shark-nosed bows of US P-40 fighters at an advanced US base in China. National Archives and Records

Administration.

covering the RAF story in depth would require several volumes, and Michael Napier’s book is certainly comprehensive

and almost every campaign is mentioned. Almost half the book is taken up with the story from 1918 to 1945, and subsequent stories are described in slightly more detail, although it seems that Search and Rescue operations get only a token photograph.

As mentioned previously, the book is well-illustrated, with many colour photographs. The bulk of the images are of good quality and the author has done well to find photographs which are not ‘the usual suspects’. My one quibble is that several are printed across two pages, with the result that part of the image is lost in the central margin.

Like many RAF aircraft, this book can take on a variety of roles. It is an informative introduction to the RAF’s history, which can whet a reader’s appetite for further study and those who served will doubtless find that it brings out memories of their time in RAF blue. Most importantly, it testifies to the breadth of the RAF’s operations over a century in which warfare was revolutionised by air power.

Peter Elliott AffiliateRAeS Historical Group

THE ROYAL AIR FORCEA Centenary of OperationsBy M Napier

Osprey Publishing, c/o Bloomsbury Publishing, PO Box 883, Oxford OX1 9PL, UK. 2018. 340pp. Illustrated. £30. ISBN 978-1-4728-2540-7.

The RAF’s Centenary Year has – as might be expected – brought forth a significant number of books looking at the RAF’s 100 years from many different angles, and in diverse formats. Michael Napier’s volume is close to what is often termed a ‘coffee table book’ – a copiously illustrated, weighty tome – but with a higher ratio of text to images than many of that genre.

It is difficult for authors to strike a balance between a comprehensive account and a detailed one; covering the RAF story in depth would require several volumes, and Michael Napier’s book is certainly comprehensive. The ten chapters cover the RAF story in – as might be expected – a rather broad-brush style but the author has taken pains to ensure that no operational theatre is omitted


HUCKNALL

Above: Vickers VC10, G-AXLR, was used a testbed for the Rolls-Royce RB211, flying for the first time on 6 March 1970 and became the last aircraft to be tested at Hucknall in March 1972.Left: Rolls-Royce Exe 24-cylinder, air-cooled, X-block, sleeve-valve engine ‘B’ Series outside the Ramp Hangar at Hucknall.RAeS (NAL).

The Rolls-Royce Flight Test EstablishmentBy D Birch

The Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust, PO Box 31, Derby DE24 8BJ, UK (E [email protected] ; T +44 (0)1332 240340). 2017. 414pp. Illustrated. £45 (Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust members), £60 (non-members) inclusive of postage/packing. ISBN 978-1-872922-43-0.

This hardback volume of 424 A4 pages covers the complete history of the Rolls-Royce Flight Test Establishment from its beginnings in the mid-1930s until the final flight of the last development aircraft (VC10 G-AXLR) from Hucknall to Filton in March 1972.

Chapter One sets the scene with introductory text on piston engines and the need to standardise as many aspects of power plant development as possible in order to simplify installation of engines in different aircraft. In parallel, the importance of engine mountings and cooling systems is discussed, together with the complexities of developments in aviation fuels and related control systems, advances in propeller design, supercharger developments and so on are covered. The chapter then moves on to the development of gas turbines and the topics of air intakes, re-heat and thrust reversal.

Chapter Two covers Flight Development, with short sections on work carried out at Stag Lane and Tollerton, prior to the necessary expansion of activities by the development of the site at Hucknall (in 1935). The next 200 pages include annual summaries of work carried out between 1935 and 1970, illustrated with many photographs of aircraft and equipment from the Rolls-Royce Heritage archives.

Chapter Three is titled ‘Other Work’, which concentrates on listing design and project activities on engine installations in various British (and some foreign) aircraft designs, while Chapter Four describes company test facilities, again illustrated with photographs and diagrams from Rolls-Royce archives.

There follow seven Appendices. Appendix 1 is broken up into six sub-sections that list all the aircraft that were involved in Hucknall’s work. Appendix 1A, in 40 pages of text, lists all the Flight Development Aircraft including those few from the days of Stag Lane and Tollerton. They appear in alphabetical order of manufacturer (listed as biplanes, then piston-powered monoplanes and so on) in order of their arrival at Rolls-Royce, with details of their use and eventual disposal. This represents a phenomenal historical resource for

aviation historians and will have taken many years of research by David Birch. With such a large scope there may be small omissions of detail but the work shows the intensity of the author’s dedicated research. The Appendix continues with aircraft received for repair, ones arriving for investigation of problems, ending with details of ‘accidents and incidents’. Further Appendices list details of powerplant production, engine data, pilots and personnel, contracts, demonstration flights and flying hours, and a useful chronology. There is also an Index.

The book is a veritable ‘Tour de Force’. I unreservedly recommend everyone with an interest in the history of a great British company to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest a great account of British engineering endeavour.

Philip ButlerAffiliate

The book is a veritable ‘Tour de Force’. I unreservedly recommend everyone with an interest in the history of a great British company to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest a great account of British engineering endeavour

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46

Book ReviewsAfterburner


Nevertheless, these modest shortfalls can be forgiven for what is ultimately an enjoyable, educational, well-paced book

scientific sense (satellites are no more than an aside to the main narrative). Nor is it a book about aircraft, rocket technology or lunar landings – though these are the vehicles (metaphorical and physical) through which the narrative is told. It is principally about people and how they came to see the Earth. It takes the reader on a journey from early 1900’s US airmail, across the Atlantic to the Nazi V-2 slave factories, follows the Cold War rush to orbit and finally to the lunar astronauts’ safe return to Earth, the home planet – an experience which they struggled to convey in ways religious, secular and scientific.

Potter has created something unique in The Earth Gazers – in a field that has been the subject of many retrospectives. The book occasionally drifts into philosophical reflections which can distract a little from its otherwise compelling style, while O’Hair’s tale sits slightly apart from the rest of the narrative. Given the subject matter, a future edition might benefit from a few additional images and photographs. Nevertheless, these modest shortfalls can be forgiven for what is ultimately an enjoyable, educational, well-paced book, which handles a very technology-driven period in history in a very human way.

Richard LoweMRAeS

THE EARTH GAZERSBy C Potter

Head of Zeus Ltd, 5-8 Hardwick Street, London EC1R 4RG, UK. 2017. 464pp. Illustrated. £25. ISBN 978-1-78497-432-9.

The Earth Gazers is an unusual and enjoyable book. Rather than dealing with a single episode in history, this book weaves together a series of biographical and aeronautical histories from the early to mid-20th century. Their common theme could be described as the ‘discovery of Earth’ and our relationship to it.

The key narratives of the book, which are neatly woven together, are those of: Charles Lindbergh and the ‘Spirit of St Louis’, Wernher von Braun’s development of rocket technology (during and after WW2), ‘Earth rise’ and the Apollo missions and the political campaigning of Madelyn Murray O’Hair. As a controversial campaigner for the separation of (the US) state and religion, O’Hair’s inclusion adds a novel extra dimension to the book. Potter is able to link each of these themes as they develop, to give a pleasingly rounded account that goes beyond simple technological storytelling, allowing a fuller contextual understanding of their ‘life and times’.

Technically inclined readers may come to this book with a number of misconceptions. It is not a book about Earth observation in the modern

The Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage is photographed from the Command and Service Modules in lunar orbit on 21 July 1969. NASA.

A charming read on airline economics, with a few titbits for airline customers

infrastructure. At every stage the author is careful to stick to the economic impact or relevance. There are times he strays towards over-simplification, e.g. defining and managing airport capacity. This is a small price to pay for a text covering the entire sector in 164 pages. The differing global perspectives on things like noise and air pollution are well documented, again through a disciplined lens of economics.

Part IV (related markets impact) does well to cover a lot of ground including airports, navigation and aircraft manufacturers. The chapter on airports is well documented posing some big questions for the industry and governments. Bilotkach succeeds in transporting a reader effectively to key developments and trends, eg the shift over the next decade towards composite material aircraft.

A charming read on airline economics, with a few titbits for airline customers. Each chapter concludes with an eye to the future and key questions. There are a few unexpected topic placements and a small bias towards US market data.

Steve BernardMRAeS

THE ECONOMICS OF AIRLINESBy V Bilotkach

Agenda Publishing Limited, The Core, Science Central, Bath Lane, Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 5TF, UK (www.agendapub.com). 2017. x; 174pp. ISBN 978-1911116-141-1. £15.

This is an easy read from start to finish in structure, writing style, loving written by someone with a close affinity to the sector.

Part I follows a classic path for an economics text focusing on demand, costs and pricing/selling strategies. These are well covered at a high-level, explaining clearly some of the more complex mechanisms. As is traditional, low-cost carriers are well documented for their significance.

Part II widens the lens to discuss the whole market. It spends time considering the industry, how it functions, taking in competition, alliances, regulation, safety and security. Bilotkach is careful while telling the airline story not to take any short cuts when it comes to defining key industry concepts along the way, eg bilateral open skies agreements.

Part III moves to external factors including pollution, congestion, the role of airports and


AERODYNAMICS

Energy Deposition for High-Speed Flow Control. D D Knight. Cambridge University Press, University Printing House, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS, UK. 2019.xi; 450pp. Illustrated. £135. ISBN 978-1-107-12305-2.

Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics Vol 51, 2019. Edited by S H Davis and P Moin. Annual Reviews, 4139 El Camino Way, Palo Alto, CA 94306, USA. 2018. vii; 643pp. Illustrated. $116. ISBN 978-0-8243-0751-6.

‘Rate Effects in Hypersonic Flows’, ‘Leading-Edge Vortices: Mechanics and Modeling’, ‘Direct Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Flows Laden with Droplets or Bubbles’, ‘Attached Eddy Model of Wall Turbulence’, ‘Turbulence Modeling in the Age of Data’, ‘Highly Resolved Brownian Motion in Space and in Time’, ‘Nonlinear Theories for Shear Flow Instabilities: Physical Insights and Practical Implications’ and the contributions of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995) are among the subjects discussed in the latest enlarged-format volume in this informative series reviewing developments in fluid dynamics research and applications.

AIRCRAFT DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

Conceptual Aircraft Design: an Industrial Approach. A K Kundu et al. John Wiley and Sons, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, UK. 2019. lxvii; 984pp. Illustrated. £96.50. ISBN 978-1-119-50028-5.

AVIONICS AND SYSTEMS

Introduction to Radar Analysis – Second edition. B R Mahafza. CRC Press,

Taylor & Francis Group, 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742, USA. 2018. Distributed by Taylor & Francis Group, 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon OX14 4RN, UK. xv; 444pp. Illustrated. £110. [20% discount available to RAeS members via www.crcpress.com using AKQ07 promotion code]. ISBN 978-1-4987-6107-9.

HISTORICAL

Ingenieros Aeronauticos en Espana: 90 anos de historia de una titulacion y sus escuelas. R Martinez-Val and J A M Caneza. Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Aeronauticos, Madrid. 2018. 278pp. Illustrated.

The history and development of aviation, the aircraft industry and the evolution of aeronautical engineering training in Spain is recorded in this well-illustrated large-format volume.

Messerchmitt Me 264 Amerika Bomber: the Luftwaffe’s Lost Transatlantic Bomber. R Forsyth and E J Creek. Ian Allan Publishing Ltd, Hersham. 2006. 128pp. Illustrated. ISBN 978-1903223-65-9.

A detailed well-illustrated large-format history of the German long-range bomber and reconnaissance aircraft which was originally conceived to be able to fly from any point of the globe to another without refuelling.

English Electric Canberra: a Press Record of its Christening and Transatlantic Flight January and February 1951. English Electric – Publicity Department (Press Section). 1951. 77pp. Illustrated.

A compilation of reproductions of numerous contemporary newspaper cuttings recording the christening on 19 January 1951 of the world’s first jet bomber ‘Canberra’ by the Prime Minister of Australia R G Menzies (which was originally planned to be built in Australia) and its subsequent record 4 hours 40 minutes flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

Nine Wing COs and the Lancaster: the Second World War Experiences of a Bomber Command Flight Engineer. P Baxter. Fighting High Ltd (www.fightinghigh.com). 2018. Distributed by Casemate, 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW, UK.

x; 244pp. Illustrated. £19.95. ISBN 978-19998128-3-6.

The authors’ WW2 experiences as one of the aircrew aboard the RAF’s then new four-engine heavy bomber the Avro Lancaster, beginning with the Technical Apprentices School at Halton followed by his subsequent postings to Cosford, Penrhos, St Athan, Wickenby, Faldingworth, Hemswell, Kirmington, Scampton, Sturgate and Waddington.

ROTORCRAFT

Helicopter Flight Dynamics: Including a Treatment of Tiltrotor Aircraft – Third edition. G D Padfield. John Wiley and Sons, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, UK. 2018. xlii; 810pp. Illustrated. £96.95. ISBN 978-1-119-40105-6.

SERVICE AVIATION

Un Destin Tourmente – Histoire de Aérodrome de Caen-Carpiquet: de 1937 a nos jours avant le quartier Koenig et l’aéroport d’aujourd’hui. F Robinard and T Quittard. Editions Heimdal, Bayeux. 2014. Illustrated. 160pp. ISBN 978-2-84048386-1.

Illustrated throughout with numerous photographs, a history of the Carpiquet airfield near Caen which was originally conceived in June 1939 as a French bomber base and then subsequently occupied by German forces who used it as a strategic base during the Battle of Britain, leading the airfield to be subsequently bombed by the Allies, during WW2.

SPACE

Commercial Space Technologies and Applications: Communication, Remote Sensing, GPS and Meteorological Satellites – Second edition. M Razani. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group,

6000 Broken sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742, USA. 2018. Distributed by Taylor & Francis Group, 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon OX14 4RN, UK. xv; 327pp. Illustrated. £110. [20% discount available to RAeS members via www.crcpress.com using AKQ07 promotion code]. ISBN 978-1-138-09785-8.

Safely to Earth: the Men and Women Who Brought the Astronauts Home. J Clemons. University Press of Florida, 15 Northwest 15th Street, Gainesville, FL 32611-2079, USA. 2018. 272pp. Illustrated. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-8130-5602-9.

The revealing autobiography of a former lead engineer who supported NASA manned spaceflight missions from Apollo 7 through to Apollo 17, Skylab and the Space Shuttle flights, concluding with the 1986 STS-51L Challenger and 2003 STS-107 Columbia disasters.

STRUCTURES AND MATERIALS

The Finite Element Method: Fundamentals and Applications in Civil, Hydraulic, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering. B Zhu. John Wiley and Sons, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, UK. 2018. xxvi; 843pp. Illustrated. £125. ISBN 978-1-119-10731-6.

Impact Mechanics – Second edition. W J Stronge. Cambridge University Press, University Printing House, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS, UK. 2018. xx; 362pp. Illustrated. £120. ISBN 978-0-521-84188-7.

Mechanics of Materials: with Applications in Excel. B B Muvdi and S Elhouar. 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. xiv; 707pp. Illustrated. £98.99. [20% discount available to RAeS members via www.crcpress.com using AKQ07 promotion code]. ISBN 978-1-466-57071-9.

Physical Metallurgy: Principles and Design. G N Haidemenopoulos. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton,

FL 33487-2742, USA. 2018. Distributed by Taylor & Francis Group, 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon OX14 4RN, UK. xiv; 475pp. Illustrated. £100. [20% discount available to RAeS members via www.crcpress.com using AKQ07 promotion code]. ISBN 978-1-138-62768-0.

Aerospace Materials and Applications. Progress in Aeronautics and Astronautics series Vol 255. Edited by B N Bhat. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Reston, VA. 2018. xiv; 828pp. Illustrated. Distributed by Transatlantic Publishers Group, 97 Greenham Road London N10 1LN, UK. £131. [20% discount available to RAeS members on request; E [email protected]]. ISBN 978-1-62410-488-6.

THERMODYNAMICS

Thermodynamics: Fundamentals and Engineering Applications. W C Reynolds and P Colonna. Cambridge University Press, University Printing House, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS, UK. 2018. xxi; 401pp. Illustrated. £84.99. ISBN 978-0-521-86273-8.

UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES

Advanced UAV Aerodynamics, Flight Stability and Control: Novel Concepts, Theory and Applications. Edited by P Marques and A Da Ronch. John Wiley and Sons, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, UK. 2017. xvii; 766pp. Illustrated. £110. ISBN 978-1-118-92868-4.

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“This book represents a lifetime of

valuable contributions to optimal low-

thrust orbit transfer.”

John E. Prussing, University of Illinois

This essential book describes the

mathematical formulations and subsequent

computer simulations required to accurately

project the trajectory of spacecraft and

rockets in space, using the formalism of

optimal control for minimum-time transfer

in general elliptic orbit. The material

will aid research students in aerospace

engineering, as well as practitioners in the

field of spaceflight dynamics, in developing

simulation software to carry out trade

studies useful in vehicle and mission design.

It will also teach them to develop flight

software for operational applications in

autonomous mode, to actually transfer

space vehicles from one orbit to another.

The hands-on real-life applications discussed

will give all readers a clear understanding

of the mathematics of orbit transfer, allow

them to develop their own operational

software to fly actual missions, and use the

contents as a research tool to carry out even

more complex analyses.

Jean Albert Kéchichian is a retired Engineering

Specialist from The Aerospace Corporation. His

career has included senior level engineering

positions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

and at Ford Aerospace. His main areas of

contribution are in spaceflight guidance and

navigation. He is a Fellow of The American

Astronautical Society, and his work has regularly

appeared in Acta Astronautica, Journal of

Guidance Control and Dynamics, Journal of the

Astronautical Sciences, and Journal of Spacecraft

and Rockets. He holds Degrees in Aeronautical

and Mechanical Engineering from l’Université

de Liège, UC Berkeley, and a PhD in Aeronautics

and Astronautics from Stanford University.

Cover image: International Space Station (2007). © Getty / Stocktrek Images.

BOOKS

Library Additions

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

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48

Society News


Afterburner

The 153rd Annual General Meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society was held in the Lecture Theatre at No.4 Hamilton Place, London, on Thursday, 10 May 2018.

The following voting members were present: ACM Sir Stephen Dalton (President), Mr Anthony Heaps, Mr Bill Read, Air Cdre Bill Tyack, Prof Chris Atkin, AVM David Couzens, Sir Donald Spiers, Dr Francesca De Florio, Mr Howard Nye, Mr Ian Middleton, Mrs Jenny Body, Sir John O’Reilly, Prof Jonathan Cooper, Mr Martin Broadhurst, Prof Moji Moatamedi, Mr Nick West, Mr Paul Bailey, Mr Paul Body, Mr Peter Brooks, Mr Scott Phillips, RAdm Simon Henley, Mr Simon Luxmoore, Dr Thurai Rahulan, Ms Zoe Layden, Mr Philip Spiers, Mr Phil Boyle, Sir Colin Terry, Mr Howard Wheeldon, Capt John Faulkner, Sir Peter Norriss, Mr Philip Stehr, Gp Cpt Peter Holtby, Mr Pat Norris, Air Cdre Peter Round and Mr N I Baker.

The following non-voting members were present: Mr Anthony Francis, Miss Kerissa Khan, Mr Bernard Chan and Mr Robert Sawford.

The following non-members were present: Mr Patrick Slomski (Honorary Solicitor) and Mrs Saadiya Ogeer (Governance and Compliance Manager).

To read the Notice convening the Meeting (agenda item 1)

The President, ACM Sir Stephen Dalton, took the chair and welcomed everyone to the 153rd Annual General Meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

The Chief Executive, Mr Luxmoore, confirmed to the President that there was a quorum.

The Chief Executive, Mr Luxmoore, announced that apologies for absence were noted from: Mrs Christine Ourmieres-Widener, Capt Colin Cox, Mr Daniel Olufisan, Mr David Lang, Capt David Rowland, Miss Diana Franceva, Miss Hilary Barton, Ms Jane Middleton, AM Julian Young, Mr Lee Balthazor, Mr Michael Gething, Mr Peter Barrett, Prof Peter Bearman, Mr Richard Daniel, Mr Roger Beazley, Mr Ronald Wood, Mr Sam Macleod, Ms Sarah Moynihan, Miss Zoë Gell and Capt Hugh Dibley.

The President explained in accordance with By-Law 19.2, the business of the Annual General Meeting was to:1. Receive and consider the minutes of the previous Annual

General Meeting2. Receive and consider the Audited accounts and the Report

of the Board of Trustees on the state of the Society

153rd ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

3. Appoint the Auditors for the ensuing year, and;4. Receive the names of those currently on the Board of

Trustees and those newly-elected to the Council.The papers circulated before the meeting were identified

by the President as being the Calling Notice for the AGM and the Agenda, The Minutes of the 2017 Annual General Meeting, the 2017 Annual Report and Accounts and the 2017 Annual Review.

The Chief Executive, Mr Luxmoore, read the Calling Notice, which appeared in the April 2018 edition of AEROSPACE and on the website.

To receive and consider the Minutes of the 152nd Annual General Meeting held on 11 May 2017 (agenda item 2)

The President invited the meeting to consider the minutes of the 152nd AGM held on 11 May 2017.

The Minutes of the 2017 AGM were accepted nem con as a true and accurate record, as proposed by Air Cdre Bill Tyack and seconded by Prof Jonathan Cooper.

To receive and consider the Audited Accounts and the Report of the Board of Trustees on the state of the Society for the year ending 31 December 2017 (agenda item 3)

The President invited the meeting to receive and deliberate upon the 2017 Annual Report and Accounts. The President (in the absence of the Finance Chair, Ms Middleton) gave key highlights noting that the Society made an operating surplus of £137k down on 2016 (£139k). The overall operating revenue was slightly down on 2016 by 1.1% at £4.3m. The membership subscriptions grew by over 3% to finish the year at £2.1m and 2017 was another positive year for Corporate Partners with subscription increasing by 13% from 2016. Last year was another tough year for Conference & Events which generated £423k through sponsorship/delegate fees through its programme of conferences and lectures. The Venue Hire struggled throughout the year to finish down by 3.5% on 2016. At the end of 2017 the Society continued to have a strong balance sheet with investments at £3.3m (up by 11%); cash reserves ended the year at £2.3m; reserves finishing at £10.3m an increase of £520k, even though the

MINUTES OF THE 153rd ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

of the Royal Aeronautical Society


Society paid an extra £500k off the mortgage leaving an outstanding balance of £1.9m. The President thanked Mr Simon Luxmoore and his team for achieving such an excellent result in 2017.

The meeting agreed nem con to receive 2017 Annual Report and Accounts, as proposed by Sir Donald Spiers and seconded Sir Colin Terry.

To appoint the Auditors for the year 2018 (agenda item 4)

The President gave thanks to haysmacintyre for their support in 2017 advising the meeting that that there were no matters arising from the audit which had been undertaken by the new audit partner at haysmacintyre. Mr Luxmoore informed the meeting that a ‘beauty parade’ for the auditors took place just under three years ago and the Audit Partner was alternated 18 months ago and has since conducted one set of accounts. The President informed the meeting that the Finance Committee Chair (supported by the Finance Committee), recommends to the Trustees and members that haysmacintyre are reappointed for the 2018 accounts. The President invited questions and comments.

The meeting agreed nem con that haysmacintyre be reappointed as the auditors for the 2018 accounts.

To receive the names of those newly elected to Council for the years 2018-2021 (agenda item 4a)

The President announced the results of the Council ballot and the votes received by each candidate in numerical order:

Total Number of Ballots Issued: 8,121Total Number of Votes Cast: 1,937Turnout: 23.9%

Candidate’s Name Number of VotesMiss Zoë Catriona Alice Gell 1,651Lieutenant Commander Richard M Gearing 1,388Mr David Gordon Chinn 1,242Mr Howard Russell Nye 1,127Mr Robert Thomas Savidge 1,120Dr Thurai Rahulan 1,115Mr Daniel Olufisan 894

The President announced that, in accordance with the Society’s By-Laws, the following had been duly elected to serve on Council for the three years 2018-2021, in alphabetical order:Mr David Gordon ChinnLieutenant Commander Richard M GearingMiss Zoë Catriona Alice GellHoward Russell NyeDr Thurai RahulanMr Robert Thomas Savidge

The President congratulated those elected and thanked all those who were ready to stand for the Council elections. The President noted that the Council members are intrinsic to the Society in representing the views of the membership and extended gratitude to the members who put their time and effort on the Council.

The President also thanked the retiring members of Council: Prof Chris AtkinCapt Hugh DibleyWg Cdr Ross Priday

To receive the names of those currently on the Board of Trustees (agenda item 5b)

The meeting received the names of the Board of Trustees:Prof Chris AtkinMr Martin BroadhurstACM Sir Stephen DaltonLt Cdr Richard GearingRAdm Simon HenleyMs Jane MiddletonMs Sarah MoynihanSir John O’ReillyDr Thurai Rahulan

The President noted that Dr Thurai Rahulan would remain a Trustee of the Society, under By-Law 6.5, until the first meeting of the new Council year when the Council would elect a new nominated trustee.

Close of the Meeting

ACM Sir Stephen Dalton noted that is has been an honour and privilege to serve as the Society’s President. ACM Sir Stephen thanked all the staff at the Society, all led successfully by Mr Luxmoore – in particular, Mr Whalley in ensuring the Society’s profile is known professionally and by the government, as well as Ms Mensah and Mrs Ogeer for their support during the past year.

It was noted that Prof Jonathan Cooper had been elected President-Elect for 2018-2019 year.

ACM Sir Stephen Dalton formally handed over the Presidency of the Society to RAdm Simon Henley and closed the formal business of the AGM.

RAdm Henley thanked ACM Sir Stephen Dalton, noting that Sir Stephen’s contribution to the Society has been fundamental and important to the Society – in having a President that is both visible and credible particularly given the ambition for the Society to be the voice of influence.

RAdm Henley then presented ACM Sir Stephen Dalton with a medal in acknowledgment of his Presidency.

RAdm Henley thanked the members present for attending the meeting.

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Obituary


Top: During the opening of the Society’s new Careers Centre on 1 July 1997. From left: Ron Kennett, Andrew Payne, Careers Officer; Sir Richard Evans, CEO, British Aerospace; and Stewart John, RAeS President 1997-1998.Middle: As his last duty for the Society Ron switched on the Society’s computerised Library catalogue which contains details of the Library’s extensive collections. Standing from left: Capt Jock Lowe, RAeS President 1998-1999; Andrew Little, RAeS Deputy Director 1995-2007; Keith Mans, Royal Aeronautical Society Director/Chief Executive, 1998-2009; Arnold Nayler, RAeS Technical Manager and Brian Riddle, Deputy Librarian.Above: Capt Jock Lowe, left, bids farewell to Ron on his retirement from the Society. Ron’s wife Sylvia is on the right, 31 July 1998.RAeS (NAL).

RON JOHN KENNETTAFAIAA FIMgt FRAeS1935-2019

Ron Kennett, who died recently at the age of 83, was the Director of the Royal Aeronautical Society from 1988 to 1998.

Ron was born in Hayes, Middlesex, and lived there throughout WW2. Following the family’s move to West Yorkshire, Ron’s engineering career started with a student apprenticeship at Bradford Technical College, where he completed a course in Electrical Engineering and gained a Higher National Certificate in 1956. Ron then took up permanent employment in the newly-formed Aircraft Equipment Division of the English Electric Company in Bradford.

The subsequent rationalisation of the aerospace industry in the UK led to his company becoming a part of Lucas Aerospace, and Ron was appointed as Chief Engineer of the Power Systems Division of that company in 1978.

Ron was a keen member and Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and, in 1988, when the position of Director of the Society was advertised, he applied for it and was selected for the post.

Having taken up his new position, Ron lost no time in reviewing the outreach of the Society and the results of his review convinced him that there was a real need to publicise the benefits of membership much more widely than had previously been the case. He therefore set himself a programme of visiting all the major employers of aerospace skills, including the Ministry of Defence, and making a presentation of the benefits to be gained from membership. This led to many applications for membership of the Society. He also encouraged existing members to take a greater interest in the Society by joining local groups and by standing for election to Council. This resulted in a marked upturn in the interest shown in the Society.

Ron made visits to the overseas Divisions and Branches of the Society and encouraged the establishment of several new Branches overseas as well as in the UK. He then accompanied successive Presidents of the Society on their overseas visits to make sure they stuck to his party line! He arranged an appropriate celebration for the 125th anniversary of the formation of the RAeS in 1991, including an event at Old Warden that was well attended.

Finally, Ron conceived of the idea of Corporate Membership of the Society and was highly successful in encouraging many aerospace associated companies to join what has become a very important section of our supporters.

Overall Ron Kennett’s tenure as Director of the Royal Aeronautical Society was highly successful and prepared the Society for a re-invigorated life in the 21st century.

After retiring from the Society on 31 July 1998,

Ron served as a Non-Executive Director of the NHS from 2000 to 2006 and was a Member of the Development Committee and The Court of the University of Hertfordshire from 2004 to 2007.

Sir Donald SpiersCEng HonFRAeS

51APRIL 2019i fFind us on Twitter Find us on LinkedIn Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com

AEROSPACE GOLF DAYFOR INDIVIDUAL AND CORPORATE MEMBERS

FRILFORD HEATH GOLF CLUB, OXFORDSHIRE / TUESDAY 4 JUNE 2019

Championship heathland golf in the South Oxfordshire countryside

18 hole texas scramble competition

9 hole stableford points competition

Individual and corporate team prizes

Breakfast, lunch, refreshments and afternoon tea

Join us at our 2019 Aerospace Golf Day for some healthy competition with fellow golfers in the aerospace and aviation community.

This event is ideal for networking in a relaxed and informal setting.

Enter a corporate 4-ball team or opt to be teamed up with other individual players.

For further details please apply to:Gail Ward Events ManagerRoyal Aeronautical SocietyT +44 (0)1491 629912E [email protected]

154th Annual General Meetingof the Royal Aeronautical Society

The 154th Annual General Meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society incorporating the Institution of Aeronautical Engineers, the Helicopter Association of Great Britain and the Society of Licensed Aircraft Engineers and Technologist will be held on Thursday, 16 May 2019, at 1830 hours at the Registered office of the Society, No.4 Hamilton Place, London W1J 7BQ, UK.

The business of the AGM:1. To receive and consider the Minutes of the 153rd Annual General Meeting held on 10 May 2018.2. To receive and consider the Audited Accounts and Report of the Board of Trustees on the state of the Society for the year

ending 31 December 2018.3. To appoint the auditors for the year 2019.4. To receive the names of those appointed to the Board of Trustees and those newly-elected to the Council for the years

2019-2022.

To register your attendance to the 154th AGM please visit our website on: https://aerosociety.com/AGM19

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Afterburner


DiaryEVENTS

2 AprilFeeling Supersonic – An Aviation OdysseyDr Michael Pryce, Lecturer, Cranfield University Historical Group Lecture

4 AprilBrexit – What now for Aviation?Air Law and Air Transport Groups half-day Seminar

9 AprilDevelopment of the SPEAR3 Weapon System

11 AprilAlan Bristow LectureRotorcraft Group Named Lecture

30 AprilBusiness Aviation 2030Networking Event

9 MayMaintenance Error: Are we learning?Conference at Cranfield University

15 MayAir Power 1944 – Setting the Conditions for VictoryConference

16 MayRAeS AGM and Annual Banquet

22-23 MayAerospace Mental Health and WellbeingAerospace Medicine Group Conference

22 MayRAF Mental Health Services: Organisation. Delivery. ImpactWg Cdr Elizabeth Ashton, Consultant Psychologist, Royal Air Force and WO James Parkin, Specialist Nurse Advisor Mental Health, Royal Air ForceAerospace Medicine Group Lecture

30 MayResults of the RemoveDEBRIS MissionProfessor Guglielmo Aglietti FRAeS, Director of the Surrey Space Centre, University of SurreySpace Group Lecture

3 JuneA Century of Transatlantic FlyingHistorical Group Seminar

4 JuneAerospace Golf DayFrilford Heath Golf Club

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

www.aerosociety/events

52

2 MayHandley Page Lecture: Aeronauts and Innovators – Northern Ireland’s Aviation Pioneers and their Inspirational Engineering AchievementsMark Price, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Engineering and Physical Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast Named Lecture

RA

eS (N

AL)

LECTURES

de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW1, XJ516. Ken Sharman will describe a day in the life of a Cold War Sea Vixen pilot at the Christchurch Branch on 25 April. RAeS (NAL).

CHRISTCHURCHLees Lecture Theatre. 7.30pm. Roger Starling, E [email protected] April — Branch AGM followed by A day in the life of a Cold War Sea Vixen pilot. Kim Sharman. Barnes Lecture Theatre, Bournemouth University Talbot Campus. 6.45pm.23 May — Flying the SR-71 Blackbird. Col Richard Graham, USAF (Ret’d).

COVENTRYLecture Theatre ECG26, Engineering & Computing Building, Coventry University, Coventry. 7.30pm. Janet Owen, T +44 (0)2476 464079.17 April — Branch AGM followed by vintage aircraft films. Rob Foxon.

CRANWELLDaedalus Officers’ Mess, RAF Cranwell. 7.30pm. Please allow enough time to visit the Guardroom for your pass.13 May — Branch AGM followed by Flying the Lightning, Wg Cdr John Ward, Ret’d.

DERBYNightingale Hall, Moor Lane, Derby. 5.30pm. Chris Sheaf, T +44 (0)1332 269368.10 April — Branch AGM followed by Adventures in noise. Joe Walsh.

FARNBOROUGHBAE Systems Park Centre, Farnborough Aerospace


followed by Boeing rotary in the UK.

BROUGHCottingham Parks Golf Club. 7.30pm. Ben Groves, T +44 (0)1482 663938.10 April — 65th Sir George Cayley Lecture. F-35B Lightning II. Air Cdre Linc Taylor, RAF. 7pm.15 May — Mirage IV – the only true deterrent? Ian Reed, Director, Yorkshire Air Museum.

CARDIFFCardiff & Vale Colleges – ICAT, Cardiff Airport Business Park, Cardiff Airport, Rhoose, Barry. 7pm. E [email protected] April — Branch AGM followed by The People’s Mosquito. Alan Pickford, Director of Finance, The People’s Mosquito.

CHESTERRoom 017, Beswick Building, University of Chester, Parkgate Road. 7.30pm. Keith Housely, T +44 (0)151 348 4480.8 April — War and Peace – 1956-1962. Peter Radcliffe, Grosvenor Museum Society and former Army Sergeant and Carl Mann, Chester Branch and former RAF Corporal. Joint lecture with the Grosvenor Museum Society. Grosvenor Museum, Chester.10 April — Airships and disaster relief. Rob Knotts, former Chairman, The Airship Association.8 May — Branch AGM followed by short aviation talks.

BAY OF PLENTYClassic Flyers, 8 Jean Batten Drive, Mount Maunganui, Tauranga 3116. 6pm.5 April — A drone view from across the ‘ditch’. Timothy Graham, Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).22 May — Erika Pearson VP Boeing Asia-Pacific and India Sales. Joint meeting with AHSNZ Tauranga.

BEDFORDARA Socal Club, Manton Lane, Bedford. 7pm. 10 April — Branch AGM followed by The NASA Juno mission to Jupiter. Dr Jonathan Nichols.

BIRMINGHAM, WOLVERHAMPTON AND COSFORDNational Cold War Museum, RAF Museum Cosford, Shifnal, Shropshire. 7pm. Chris Hughes, T +44 (0)1902 844523.18 April — History of Royal flying. Sqn Ldr Graham Laurie.16 May — Branch AGM (6.15pm) followed by Rebuilding granddad’s Bristol Scout. David Bremner.20 June — Schools Build-a-Plane Challenge. Graham Wiley and Stuart Blakemore.

BOSCOMBE DOWNLecture Theatre, MoD Boscombe Down. 5.15pm. Visitors please register at least four days in advance (name and car registration required) E [email protected] April — Branch AGM

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LOUGHBOROUGHRoom U020, Brockington Building, Loughborough University. 7.30pm. Colin Moss, T +44 (0)1509 239962.7 May — Branch AGM (7pm) followed by Blue Steel – the V-Force’s stand-off bomb. Air Cdre Norman Bonnor.11 June — Loughborough University MEng final year aircraft design projects – short lecture series. Joint lecture with Loughborough University Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering. Room J104, Edward Herbert Building, Loughborough University. 7pm.

MANCHESTERFourth Floor Conference Room E5, James Lighthill Building.4 April — Branch AGM followed by Teddy Fielding Mini-Lecture Competition.

MEDWAYConference Room 1, BAE Systems (Rochester), Marconi Way, Rochester. 7pm. Robin Heaps, T +44 (0)1634 377973.17 April — An independent Royal Air Force – inspiration or aberration. Greg Baughen.

OXFORDThe Magdalen Centre, Oxford Science Park, Oxford. 7pm. Andrew Dann, E [email protected] April — Sadler Lecture and Dinner. Bird in a biplane. Tracey Curtis-Taylor. Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford.14 May — Branch AGM and

followed by Unlearned and forgotten lessons for today’s defence forces from the Spitfire and Hurricane. Dr Gregor Ferguson, Director, Rumour Control.26 June — Aviation Safety Forum. Four Seasons Hotel, 199 George Street, Sydney. 8.30am.

TOULOUSESymposium room, Building B01, Airbus Campus 1, Blagnac. 6pm. Contact: http://goo.gl/WbiKtV to register.16 April — The future of aerospace: known knowns and known unknowns! Sir Brian Burridge, CEO, RAeS.14 May — Branch AGM followed by 12th ADS RAeS Toulouse Branch Lecture. Launching satellites from UK Space Centre in Scotland. Chris Lamour, CEO, Orbex Space.7 June — Annual Dinner. Château de Larroque, 32200 Gimont.

WASHINGTON DC12 April Branch Field Trip: Goddard Spaceflight Center. 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771. 10am.9 May — Hypersonics.

WEYBRIDGEBrooklands Museum, Campbell Gate entrance. 6.45pm.17 April — Branch AGM and Social.15 May — BAe Harrier ski-jump take-off feasibility trials. Dick Poole, former Chief Flight Test Engineer, Dunsfold.19 June — VC10 to Voyager.

YEOVILDallas Conference Room 1A, Leonardo Helicopters, Yeovil. 6.30pm. David Mccallum, E [email protected] April — Reggie Brie Young Members’ Lecture Competition.17 May — Branch AGM followed by Undercarriage design. Kerissa Khan.21 June — Flying on Salisbury Plain. Ted Mustard.

Hörsaal 01.12 Berliner Tor 5 (Neubau), 20099 Hamburg. 6pm.9 May — Ergonomics in the aviation industry. Dipl-Ing Klaus Fuchs, Senior Ergonomist, Plant Hamburg, Airbus.23 May — Cyber security – the downside of digitalisation. Prof Dr Dieter Gollmann, Chair, Institute for Security in Distributed Applications, Hamburg University of Technology.4 June — Gerhard Sedlmayr Lecture. ZAL Tech Center.

HAMILTONGlenview Club, Peacockes Road, Glenview, Hamilton.10 April — A drone view from across the ‘ditch’. Timothy Graham, Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).

HATFIELDLindop Building, Room A166, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield. 7pm.9 April — Sir Geoffrey de Havilland Lecture. APPG for aerospace. Grant Shapps MP. Weston A.14 May — Branch AGM followed by An evening with a CFI. Reg Barber.

HEATHROWBritish Airways Theatre, Waterside, Harmondsworth. 6.15pm. For security passes please contact Dr Ana Pedraz, E [email protected] or T +44 (0)7936 392799.11 April — British Airways centenary. Alex Cruz, Chairman and CEO, British Airways.

British Apache operations in Afghanistan. Julian Lee.

PRESTONPersonnel and Conference Centre, BAE Systems, Warton. 6.30pm. Alan Matthews, T +44 (0)1995 61470.10 April — Airborne electronic warfare – the Cold War legacy. Gordon Slater, BAE Systems Ret’d.8 May — RAF 2118 Engineering – the next 100 years. Dr Julia Sutcliffe, Head of Engineering Training Services, BAE Systems.12 June — Bush Pilot Flying. Capt Bryan Pill, Mission Aviation Fellowship.

SOUTHENDHoliday Inn, Southend Airport. 8pm. Sean Corr, T +44 (0)20 7929 3400.9 April — Branch AGM.14 May — Ernest Dove Lecture. Bush flying. Capt Bryan Pill, Mission Aviation Fellowship.

STEVENAGEAirbus SG1 2AS. 6pm. E [email protected] April — Leslie Bedford Lecture and Dinner.14 May — Branch AGM followed by a lecture.19 June — Air traffic control for the modern age. Rachel Crosby.

SYDNEYMechanical Engineering Theatre, University of Sydney. 6.30pm.10 April — Branch AGM

Left: Vickers Vimy Commercial, G-EASI, City of London, of Instone Air Line. The centenary of British Airways will be discussed by Alex Cruz at Heathrow on 11 April. RAeS (NAL).

Centre. 7.30pm. Dr Mike Philpot, T +44 (0)1252 614618.16 April — Cody Lecture. The 5m wind tunnel – past, present and future. Ian Smith, QinetiQ; David Mowbray and David Woodward Ret’d.16 May — Branch AGM (7pm) followed by Reaction Engines update. Sophie Harker, Aerodynamics and Performance Engineer for BAE Systems’ Concepts & Technology Team.11 June — The Zephyr high altitude long endurance aircraft. Paul Stevens, Airbus Farnborough.

GATWICKCAA Aviation House, Gatwick.8 May — The future of aerospace: known knowns and known unknowns! Sir Brian Burridge, CEO, RAeS.

GLOUCESTER AND CHELTENHAMSafran Landing Systems, Restaurant Conference Room, off Down Hatherley Lane. 7.30pm. Gary Murden, T +44 (0)1452 715165.18 April — 24th Folland Lecture and Dinner. Hatherley Manor Hotel, Gloucester. 7pm.21 May — Branch AGM (7pm) followed by Flying the SR-71 Blackbird on an operational mission from RAF Mildenhall. Col Richard Graham, USAF (Ret’d).

HAMBURGHochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg,

Stop pressRAeS lecture in BerlinContact: [email protected] April – Ice crystal icing of aero-engines. Martin Maltby.

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Afterburner

A year to remember

Society News

Above: Take-off from Newfoundland of Alcock and Brown’s Vickers Vimy for the first non-stop Atlantic flight, 14 June 1919. RAeS (NAL).

Below: Buzz Aldrin’s bootprint; Aldrin photographed this bootprint about an hour into their lunar extra-vehicular activity on 20 July 1969, as part of investigations into the soil mechanics of the lunar surface. NASA.

DH4 which appeared in an early draft was found to be already extinct.

Fast-forward ten years and 1969 was another momentous year for aerospace The Boeing 747 took to the air for the first time on 9 February, an event that would lead to more affordable air travel and create a mass market. At the other end of the passenger scale, Concorde made its maiden flight on 2 March, the Soviet Union’s Tupolev Tu-144 ‘Concordski’ having made its first flight on the last day of 1968. In May 1969 the Daily Mail Transatlantic Air Race marked the 50th anniversary of Alcock and Brown’s epic flight, with dozens of competitors racing between London’s Post Office Tower and the Empire State Building in New York. The race did much to publicise the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, which flew from a site which is probably now part of the British Library (quiet, please!) but the large number of competitors flew in a wide range of military and civilian aircraft, from McDonnell Douglas Phantoms to scheduled airliners, business jets and light aircraft.

Arguably the greatest aerospace — indeed outer-space — achievement of 1969 was Apollo 11’s Moon landing on 20 July, an event that captured the world’s imagination like nothing before — or, arguably, since. How many of us watched spellbound as fuzzy black and white images appeared on television from the Sea of Tranquillity? My wife’s parents bought their first TV specifically for the event.

As one might imagine, a number of events are being planned to commemorate several of these momentous anniversaries. Diss Museum http://www.airships.me.uk/ is planning to mark the R34 centenary, while the Brooklands Museum will doubtless feature its Vimy replica and Concorde.

It seems that anniversaries are like the proverbial buses – you wait ages for one, and then several arrive at once. Among the aerospace anniversaries that will be celebrated in 2019 are four centenaries, one 60th, and several 50ths.

A remarkably busy year in aviation terms, 1919 was dominated by Atlantic crossings. Most people have heard of the US Navy’s Curtiss flying boats which set off on 16 May (one eventually reached Lisbon on the 27th) while John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown earned their place in aeronautical history by making the first non-stop crossing on 14/15 June. But the names of Hawker and Mackenzie-Grieve, Raynham, Wood and Wyllie, and Peters of the Alliance Aeroplane Company are mostly forgotten. Handley Page’s mammoth V/1500 was also a competitor but was not ready in time to attempt a crossing: instead, the aircraft set out on a non-stop flight from Newfoundland to New York.

Within a few weeks of Alcock and Brown’s flight the airship R34 made the first double Atlantic crossing, reaching Long Island on 6 July; the return journey lasted 75 hours and the airship reached Pulham in Norfolk on the 13th.

A longer Vimy flight was Ross and Keith Smith’s journey from Hounslow Heath near London to Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory, made over 28 days in November and December. Earlier in the year, and also from Hounslow, Aircraft Transport & Travel (AT&T) had launched the world’s first daily international scheduled air service, connecting London and Paris. You will by now doubtless be aware that AT&T is one of the ancestors of British Airways, and the company is celebrating its centenary in style.

The 60th anniversary is that of the RAeS Historical Group, which was formed in 1959, partly as a result of the Society’s purchase of the Nash Collection of historic aircraft in 1953. In late 1957 and early 1958 there was a flurry of correspondence in Flight and The Aeroplane regarding the need for an Aeronautical History Society. Peter Masefield, RAeS President for 1959-60, had been campaigning from 1954 for a National Air Museum, gathering various representatives of government departments and aviation organisations to move the project forward – sadly, without success. One result of this process was the compilation of a Register of Historic Aircraft, published in the Society’s Journal in August 1959; many of the aircraft listed are still surviving and some of them are still airworthy. Sadly, the Airco

2019 ANNIVERSARIES


CORPORATE PARTNER EVENTS

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

Please note: Attendance at Corporate Partner events is strictly exclusive to staff of RAeS Corporate Partners. Both individual and corporate members are welcome at the Annual Banquet.

Monday 1 April 2019 / LondonThe evolution of aviation propulsion over the next two decades Corporate Partner Briefing by Paul Stein FRAeS, Chief Technology Officer, Rolls-Royce plcSponsor

Thursday 2 May 2019 / LondonCyber crime: The current cyber threat and the Team Cyber UK response Corporate Partner Briefing by Chief Constable Peter Goodman, Cyber Crime Lead, National Police Chiefs’ Council

Find out more about Royal Aeronautical Society Corporate membership, advertising and sponsorship:E [email protected] +44 (0)20 7670 4346www.aerosociety.com/corporate

Thursday 16 May 2019 / LondonAnnual BanquetGuest of Honour: Guillaume Faury, President Commercial Aircraft and CEO Designate, AirbusCorporate tables and individual tickets availableSupported by:

Tuesday 4 June 2019 / Frilford Heath, OxfordshireAerospace Golf Day 2019Individual players and corporate teams are welcome

Thursday 6 June 2019 / LondonCorporate Partner BriefingDavid Goldstone, Chief Operating Officer, Ministry of Defence

Within the Royal Aeronautical Society, the Space Group will mark the Apollo 11 anniversary with a lecture, and the Historical Group is planning a one-day seminar to be held on 3 June, with the title ‘A Century of Transatlantic Flight’. Six speakers will discuss various aspects of flight over the Atlantic, including Alcock and Brown’s ‘also-ran’ competitors, as mentioned earlier. Dr Wendy Pritchard, whose grandfather was a member of the crew of R34 and the first person to arrive in America by air, will describe the airship’s double crossing. Professor Keith Hayward FRAeS – well known to AEROSPACE readers – will look at Vickers’ transatlantic projects – the 1950’s V.1000, which was cancelled before the prototype was completed, and the 1960’s VC10, which was a mainstay of BOAC and British Airways’ transatlantic services. Tony Buttler AMRAeS, will give an account of how the Concorde design developed, from the first proposals to the type’s entry into service, looking at the problems that had to be overcome and some of the research aircraft associated with the project.

A transatlantic conference needs to have some input from ‘across the pond’ and we hope to have two speakers from the US. Dr Bob van der Linden from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will give a paper on the development of the Boeing 747 and its impact on air travel, while a speaker, yet to be confirmed, will cover the US Army Air Force’s transatlantic flights during WW2.

Peter ElliottAffiliateChair, RAeS Historical Group

de Havilland DH4A, G-EAJC, of Aircraft Transport and Travel Ltd. On 25 August 1919 Lt E H (Bill) Lawford flew the first commercial passenger service in this aircraft, flying from Hounslow to Le Bourget in 2 hours and 30 minutes. RAeS (NAL).

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mailto:[email protected]

56

Elections


SOCIETY OFFICERSPresident: Rear Admiral Simon HenleyPresident-Elect: Prof Jonathan Cooper

BOARD CHAIRMEN

Learned Society Chairman: Air Cdre Peter Round

Membership Services Chairman: Philip Spiers

Professional Standards Chairman: Hilary Barton

DIVISION PRESIDENTS

Australia: Andrew NeelyNew Zealand: Des AshtonPakistan: AM Salim ArshadSouth African: Marié Botha

Afterburner

Richard AtkinsonStephen AustinInez BartoloPhil Breeze-LambPaul BruceGiorgio CosentiniDavid DacombeIan DearingAndrew EdgellChristopher HarperSudhir MishraJonathan ParkerManjinder PhullEric SavoryMitchell SerberKevin ShortAnthony SmeetonSophie ThomasChun-Hui WangJerry WildingDevinder YadavSyed Zulfiquar

Taieb Ben SghaierColin BiggOlatunbosun BuraimohShane CarrollXiaoer ChenWilliam ClarkLee ColeMartin CollarboneMark ConwayMichel CordeauAndrew CroninTanya DolanStephen FletcherAlexander GodfreyIan GreigJames Hancock-OrloffRichard JohnsKarpaga Vipran Kannan

FELLOWS

Kyle CatoWill Devey

Kerissa KhanDulani Daminda

KuruppuDavid MarlesJack-James MarlowRobin MougenotRichard NailorWezi NyimbiliJames O’BrienOlufemi OduboreSimon O’HaraJoshua PanikkarMichael PennDaniel PetitfilsGerrard PitmanLaura RamosRui Rego da SilvaIgnacio Rodriguez

MirandaStephen RoebuckJames SarosiStephen Saywell-HallAndrew StaceyPaul SutherlandAzard Tennant HoseinStuart WatsonSophie WattOliver Westbrook-

NethertonSimon WhalleyThomas WhiteMark Wignall

Sarang AbbasiPeter AsperyDarcy BeltonJames BoothPaul JonesAlexander KimberAllan McCabeLewis NorrisStewart OstlerSarath Ushabai

Adam BrownleesLuke BurlovichSoufiyan ChakraAlexander DavisMichael EvansWilliam GarrigleMatthew HogsdenJoey HoogendoornAdam HowellAlejandro Iglesias PerezCong JingtanSam KarlsenBaris KizavulTayyab MalikAhmed MohammedTom MulcahyRichard Parry-SargentJeancarlo PestanaDinesh Raja RajamaniJovi SinclairSheikh Saad Zahid

Christopher CambridgePaul ChristodoulouAekim GarciaMatthew JaffaKevin KanPeter TurnerMina Yacoub

Michael DoeringSumilan GovindenAlan LeeSheena McRaeJemima SinclairMatthew SnowdonMichael SturgeonGary TurnerPhillip Wood

STUDENT AFFILIATES

WITH REGRETThe RAeS announces with regret the deaths of the following members:

ASSOCIATES

AFFILIATES

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS

E-ASSOCIATESMEMBERS

Roger Ainsworth FRAeS 68

Ian Richard Child CEng FRAeS 52

Kenneth Edwin Jesson MRAeS 85

Christopher John Rowland CEng MRAeS 77

Karen Marie Van Breukelen MRAeS 47

John David Wragg CEng FRAeS 91

Luke MasiniParampal Sappal

Thank you for taking the time to vote in the 2019 Council Elections

2019 RAeS COUNCIL ELECTIONS

The Royal Aeronautical Society Council Election 2019 opened for voting on 25 February 2019. All voting members who have an email address registered with the Society will have received an email notice enabling you to vote. If you believe that you are a voting member but did not receive an email, or you do not have a valid email address registered with the Society, then please contact

our election provider, mi-voice, on +44 2380 76 3978 (we would advise that you check your email account’s junk folder, in case your email settings determine the email as being spam)

Please note that the voting will close at 9.00am on Thursday 16 May 2019.

HAVE YOU VOTED IN THE RAeS COUNCIL ELECTION 2019 YET?

7 May 2019 Upcoming Closing Date for Applications

Apply or upgrade now for Membership or Professional Registration

Membership benefits include:

● RAeS post-nominal letters ● Professional Registration with Engineering Council UK ● Learn and Influence through our Specialist Groups ● AEROSPACE Magazine ● Lectures & Conferences ● Online Resources ● Local Branch Network ● Professional Development Advice

Apply today: www.aerosociety.com/create-account Get in touch: [email protected]/+44 (0)20 7670 4384

WANTED – SENIOR DESIGN ENGINEER and GRADUATE ENGINEER

As part of a planned development of LAA engineering resources we are seeking two applicants able to take on engineering roles reporting to the Chief Engineer at LAA HQ, Turweston.

DESIGN ENGINEERA senior engineering role, with the ability to handle type-acceptance of new designs, approval of mods and repairs, and design support for continued airworthiness oversight. The applicant should be a qualified aeronautical engineer/designer, with experience in design, development, testing and certification, preferably as a CAA approved signatory. A thorough knowledge is required of design, aerodynamics, structures, loads and stressing, stability and control, light aircraft powerplants and systems. Familiarity with the application of design codes and legislation and a knowledge of LAA-type amateur built and vintage aircraft are essential, while a PPL and experience of aircraft ownership, and aircraft construction and repair, in wood, metal and composites are an advantage.

GRADUATE ENGINEERThe successful applicant will be a newly graduated (or shortly to graduate) aeronautical engineer, already versed in design, aerodynamics, structures, loads and stressing, stability and control. Knowledge of and enthusiasm for LAA amateur built and vintage aircraft light aircraft, their powerplants and systems, is an important asset. The engineer’s work will involve a combination of paperwork study involving close attention to detail, hands-on aircraft examination, design defect recognition and problem solving; managing challenges as they arise. A good level of customer interface at all levels, short and long-term project management skills will be needed, in an enthusiastic but pressured environment.

The salaries for both positions will be commensurate with skill level and experience. Please forward your c.v. and letter of application to Steve Slater, CEO, Light Aircraft Association, Turweston Aerodrome, Northants NN13 SYD, or to [email protected]

Join us as a

Corporate PartnerRAeS Corporate Partners are organisations, both large and small, across civil and defence, from the breadth of the aerospace, aviation and space sectors. We provide a high-level commitment to professional recognition, continuous professional development, networking and knowledge sharing.

4 Exclusive Corporate Partner briefings 4 Access to our global network of Branches 4 Free access to AEROSPACE and The Aeronautical

Journal 4 Discounted conference rates 4 Free accreditation costs 4 Discounted individual member joining fees 4 Free meeting room and discounted room hire at RAeS HQ 4 Use of the RAeS Corporate Partner logo

Find out more about corporate membership: [email protected] www.aerosociety.com/corporate +44 (0)20 7670 4300 @aerosociety

with collaborative EU-funded research and the easy access to younger aerospace workers and researchers who may not pass the earnings threshold for post-Brexit access.

Funding R&D to be a struggle

We are promised a matching Government investment in R&D to compensate any loss of access to EU-funded programmes; but this will not be equivalent to the leverage afforded by participation in a multi-billion aeronautical programme. UK membership of a growing EU pot for defence R&D may also be doubtful, as is access to EU space contracts such as Galileo. An autonomous alternative to either will hardly scratch the surface of the costs of matching these efforts, as well as paying for existing defence projects. Two billion quid for Tempest simply treads water. At least this might pay the entry fee for an F-35 ‘follow-on’.

And the Single Aviation Area?

The aeroplanes will still be flying into Europe on 1 April but exact details are uncertain. The full flexibility afforded by membership of the single aviation market will be constrained, with an impact on the profitability of some routes. UK registered carriers have shifted some aspects of registration to cope but IAG has still fully to resolve its ownership issues to meet the somewhat contradictory demands of EU law with those of the transatlantic ‘Open Skies’ agreement that has been ‘grandfathered’ to the UK.

And so into the future

The sky will not fall in on 1 April but expect a slow decline in the fortunes of the UK aerospace industry over the next decade. Not ‘Project Fear’ but a logical conjecture based on any of the Brexit scenarios. The difference will be in the scope and speed of the decline. Historically, aerospace collaboration was a key link with Europe before our membership of the EEC/EU, and that the UK was a powerful force in the struggle to liberalise the airline market. Oh well, hope for the best and bon chance.

So here we are, on the edge of leaving the European Union: its timing dependent on a sequence of Parliamentary votes. At the time of writing we are still in the dark about the exact nature of our departure.

Mrs May lost her bid to deliver a deal; a ‘no deal’ scenario may well be passed but nothing is certain. The best we can hope for is some form of deal based on a two-year transition or a stark break with all the links, regulations and conveniences of 40 years or so of membership. And the terms of the break do matter, for aerospace manufacturing and aviation links alike.

Airbus – the key programme

The prospect raised by Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus, that Brexit could imperil over 50 years of investment in the UK, is real enough. It would be slow but inexorable. Transferring in totality British-located wing manufacturing is not an option. Aerospace, as Enders noted, is a long-term business and the real threat is to the location of the next big Airbus investment, likely to be decided in the early 2020s. This decision would then set a path stretching out for over a decade.

Historically, the threat to Britain’s prized wing responsibility has come from the Germans, who were very keen to wrest control for every Airbus launch since the late 1980s. These days the challenge is from a wider set of players; China as already mentioned but also Airbus North America politically would be a shrewd choice, especially if US States started to bid for the work.

Airbus’ concerns are also reflected in similar sentiments expressed directly to Northern Ireland’s DUP, which officially backs the London Government but has withheld its support over the Brexit deal on offer, by Belfast-based Bombardier.

Investment decisions in aerospace are to some extent influenced by politics but since recent WTO rulings (what irony) have limited the extent of direct government subsidy in airliner projects, inducements will be more indirect. This will emphasise publicly financed R&D and human resources, which may become more constrained in this country post-Brexit if the UK loses the leverage associated

The Last Word

Brexit or not quite?

Professor Keith HaywardFRAeS

COMMENTARY FROM


AEROSPACE, AS ENDERS NOTED, IS A LONG-TERM BUSINESS AND THE REAL THREAT IS TO THE LOCATION OF THE NEXT BIG AIRBUS INVESTMENT, LIKELY TO BE DECIDED IN THE EARLY 2020s

Established as a key event in the social calendar of the aviation and aerospace community, the Royal Aeronautical Society Annual Banquet attracts high level industry attendance and offers the ideal opportunity for networking and corporate entertainment.

Individual tickets and corporate tables are available with discounted rates for RAeS members and Corporate Partners.

Guest of Honour

Guillaume FauryCEO Designate, Airbus

Venue

The InterContinental London Park Lane,One Hamilton Place, London W1J 7QY, UK

Programme

Reception: 7.15pm Dinner: 8.00pm

What’s included?

This black tie event includes a pre-dinner networking reception followed by an exquisite four-course dinner with fine wines and coffee.

Enquiries to:Gail Ward, Events Manager – Corporate & SocietyRoyal Aeronautical SocietyT +44 (0)1491 629 912 / E [email protected]

www.aerosociety.com/banquet

Thursday 16 May 2019 / London

Supported by

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DRONE ACADEMY - Royal Aeronautical Society

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