The Society's Annual Forum & Technology Display is the world's leading international technical event on vertical flight technology. The three-day meeting includes more than 200 technical papers on every discipline from Acoustics to Unmanned Systems. Forum Proceedings papers can be purchased as individual pdf files or as CD-ROMs from the Society's Online Store.
Every year, the best paper in each technical discipline is selected by the Society's Technical Committees. All of the best papers from each technical discipline from every Annual Forum since 2001 – including the overall Alfred Gessow Best Paper Award since 2004 – are recognized as some of the most important technical contributions in the field of vertical flight.
The Forum 60 (2004) winning technical papers are linked below.
| Technical Area | Title of Paper | Author(s) |
| Winner of the Alfred Gessow Forum Best Paper Award (Test & Evaluation) |
V-22 High Rate Of Descent (HROD) Test Procedures And Long Record Analysis | Albert Brand, Ron Kisor, Robert Blyth; Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. Dave Mason, Chris Host; The Boeing Company |
| Acoustics | A New Aerodynamic and Acoustic Computation Chain For BVI Noise Prediction In Unsteady Flight Conditions | Guillaume Perez, ONERA/Department of Acoustics Numerical Simulations Châtillon, France; Michel Costes, ONERA/Department of Applied Aerodynamics Châtillon, France |
| Aerodynamics | Rotor Airloads Prediction Using Loose Aerodynamic/Structural Coupling | Mark Potsdam, Army/NASA Rotorcraft Division; Hyeonsoo Yeo, Raytheon ITSS; Wayne Johnson, Army/NASA Rotorcraft Division |
| Aircraft Design | Swept Tip Design Trade Study - New Affordable Main Rotor Blade for the AH-64D Apache Attack Helicopter | Robert Loftus, The Boeing Company |
| Avionics and Systems | In-Flight Assessment Of A Pursuit Guidance Display Format For Manually Flown Precision Instrument Approaches | Ernesto Moralez III, George E. Tucker, William S. Hindson, Chad R. Frost, Army/NASA Rotorcraft Division; Gordon H. Hardy, Northrop Grumman Information Technology |
| Crash Safety | Numerical Simulation of A Composite Helicopter Sub-Floor Structure Subjected To Water Impact | Dieter Kohlgrüber, German Aerospace Center (DLR); Andrea Vigliotti, Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA); Victor Weissberg, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI); and Hans Bartosch, Eurocopter Deutschland (ECD) |
| Crew Stations & Human Factors | Improving the Flight Path Marker Symbol on Rotorcraft Synthetic Vision Display | Zoltan P. Szoboszlay, Army/NASA Rotorcraft Division, Aeroflightdynamics; Gordon H. Hardy, Northrop Grumman Information Technology; Terence M. Welsh, Silicon Valley Systems |
| Dynamics | Active Controller For Comanche Air Resonance Stability Augmentation | Brahmananda Panda, Evhen Mychalowycz, Bruce Kothmann, The Boeing Company; Robert Blackwell, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation |
| Flight Simulation | Distributed Multi-Vehicle Simulation Including High-Order Airwake Representation | Robert M. McKillip, Jr., Daniel A. Wachspress, Jeffrey D. Keller, Glen R. Whitehouse, Todd R. Quackenbush, and Alex H. Boschitsch; Continuum Dynamics, Inc. |
| Handling Qualities | Reducing Rotor-Body Coupling Using Active Control | Vineet Sahasrabudhe and Phillip J. Gold; Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation |
| Lichten Award Presentation | Flow Control Strategies for Improved Aerodynamic Efficiency of Micro-Rotorcraft | Jongmin Kim, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| Operations | Air - Ground Mobility: Discovering Qualities of Vertical Maneuver Necessary to Project the Future Force |
MAJ Allen Huber, Mr. D. Brian Godwin and Mr. Larry Frakes, U.S Army |
| Propulsion | Thermal and Environmental Barrier Coatings for Advanced Propulsion Engine Systems | Dongming Zhu and Robert A. Miller, NASA John H. Glenn Research Center |
| STOVL Technology | The Carter Heliplane Transport Slowed Rotor/Compound Aircraft: Candidate for the Air-Maneuver Transport (AMT) | Jay Carter Jr., Carter Aviation Technologies |
| Structures and Materials | Development Of A Braided Composite Drive Shaft With Captured End Fittings | Sherman Lin and Scott Poster, Bell Helicopter Textron |
| Test and Evaluation | V-22 High Rate Of Descent (HROD) Test Procedures And Long Record Analysis | Albert Brand, Ron Kisor, Robert Blyth; Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. Dave Mason, Chris Host; The Boeing Company |
| Unmanned VTOL | An Intelligent Approach to Coordinated Control of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles | George Vachtsevanos, Liang Tang, Johan Reimann; Georgia Institute of Technology |