July 30, 2014
Contact:
The Vertical Flight Society
703-684-6777
AHS International Announces Winner of 2014 Alfred Gessow Best Forum Paper Award
Alexandria, VA — AHS International – The Vertical Flight Technical Society announces today the winner of the Society’s prestigious Alfred Gessow Award for the best technical paper presented at the AHS International 70th Annual Forum and Technology Display. The award consists of a plaque and payment of transportation costs for one author to present the paper at the annual European Rotorcraft Forum (ERF).
The winning paper is "Design and Development of the Atlas Human-Powered Helicopter," by Cameron Robertson and Todd Reichert of AeroVelo Inc. AeroVelo stunned the world in July 2013 by winning the seemingly impossible AHS Sikorsky Prize, unclaimed after a third of a century. Now, they have revealed their design and development approach in a technical paper that was deemed to be the most thorough and groundbreaking of the entire AHS Forum. The paper is available for sale in the AHS Online Store.
The selection process, which began in October 2013, was extremely rigorous. Session chairs selected 300 abstracts from the nearly 400 received, of which 250 papers were found eligible for consideration. After the Forum, the session chairs and technical committee chairs selected the 20 best papers. Then the Deputy Technical Directors for Aeromechanics, Vehicle Design, Vehicle Integrity, System Integration, Systems Engineering and Operations and Product Support winnowed that number down to six papers. The AHS International Technical Director evaluated and ranked the papers, selecting the winning paper as the best at Forum 70.
This year’s 70th Annual Forum and Technology Display was held on May 20-22, 2014 in Montréal, Québec. All of the technical session best papers are available on the AHS Online Store – all of the winners can be found at www.vtol.org/forum-70-best-papers.
Mr. Robertson will present the paper at the 40th annual ERF, held this year in Southampton, UK on September 2, 2014. There the Alfred Gessow plaque will be officially bestowed upon him. The award is named after Alfred Gessow, a helicopter pioneer, researcher, author, professor and founder of the rotorcraft center at the University of Maryland now named for him. This is truly a fitting honor, as it was the efforts by the Gessow Center in the AHS human powered helicopter competition that inspired AeroVelo and the world with their impressive strides towards the "impossible challenge" of the AHS Sikorsky Prize. AHS International is now working on the next "impossible challenge" to inspire even more innovation in vertical flight.
The American Helicopter Society (AHS) International is the world's premier vertical flight technical society. Since its inception in 1943, AHS has been a major force in the advancement of vertical flight. The Society is the global resource for information on vertical flight technology. It provides global leadership for scientific, technical, educational and legislative initiatives that advance the state-of-the-art of vertical flight.
This press release is also available as a pdf.
AHS International – The Vertical Flight Technical Society
217 N. Washington St., Alexandria, VA 22314, USA
phone: (703) 684-6777; toll free: 855-AHS-INTL; fax: (703) 739-9279
Send email; web site: www.vtol.org