
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 AHS 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 68 (2012) winning technical papers are linked below.
Technical Area | Title of Paper | Author(s) |
Winner of the Alfred Gessow Forum Best Paper Award (Test & Evaluation) |
Blade Tip Pressure Measurements Using Pressure Sensitive Paint | Oliver Wong, US Army AFDD; A. Neal Watkins, NASA Langley Research Center; Kyle Goodman, ATK; Jim Crafton, Alan Forlines and Larry Goss, Innovative Scientific Solutions, Inc. and James Gregory and Thomas Juliano, The Ohio State University |
Acoustics | A Semi-Empirical Noise Modeling Method for Helicopter Maneuvering Flight Operations | Dr. Eric Greenwood, NASA Langley Research Center; Fredric Schmitz and Richard Sickenberger, University of Maryland |
Advanced Vertical Flight | Tailless Flapping Wing Propulsion and Control Development for the Nano Hummingbird Micro Air Vehicle | Matthew Keennon, Karl Klingebiel, Henry Won and Alexander Andriukov, AeroVironment Inc. |
Aerodynamics | Rotor Aeromechanics Results from the Sikorsky Active Flap Demonstration Rotor | Peter Lorber, Benjamin Hein and Jonathan Wong, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and Brian Wake, United Technologies Research Center |
Aircraft Design | Design Optimization of Gamera II: A Human Powered Helicopter | Ben Berry, Graham Bowen-Davies, Kyle Gluesenkamp, Zak Kaler, Joseph Schmaus, William Staruk, Elizabeth Weiner and Benjamin Woods, University of Maryland |
Avionics and Systems | AH-6: Creating an Agile Software Product Line Architecture | Andrew Augenstein, The Boeing Company |
Crash Safety | Analysis and Control of A Magnetorheological Landing Gear System For a Helicopter | Young-Tai Choi, Ryan Robinson, Wei Hu, and Norman M. Wereley, University of Maryland; Terence S. Birchette and Akif Bolukbasi, The Boeing Co. and Jin Woodhouse, U.S. Army AATD |
Crew Stations and Human Factors | Flight Evaluation of Fully-Masked Approaches to Landing Using Boss Displays in an EH-60L | Zoltan Szoboszlay and Carl Ott, U.S. Army RDECOM; Walter Harrington, Air Force Research Laboratory and Gregory Neiswander, San Jose Research Foundation |
Dynamics | Coupled CSD/CFD and Viscous Vortex Particle Method for Rotorcraft Comprehensive Analysis | Jinggen Zhao and Chengjian He, Advanced Rotorcraft Technology, Inc. |
Handling Qualities | Design and Flight Test of a Cable Angle/Rate Feedback Flight Control System for the RASCAL JUH-60 Helicopter | Christina Ivler, Mark Tischler, Jay Fletcher and Carl Ott, US Army AFDD (AMRDEC) and J. David Powell, Stanford University |
Health and Usage Monitoring Systems | Development of a Fatigue Life Management System for Dynamic Components on the OH-58D Kiowa | Brian Tucker, Joshua Mochache, Ronald Hobbs, Rebecca Yu, Bell Helicopter Textron and Terry Baker, U. S. Army Aviation Engineering Directorate |
History | Gustave de Ponton d’Amecourt, Gaspard Félix Tounachon and Gabriel de la Landelle: A Re-evaluation of the Contributions of the “Triumvirat Hélicoptèroidal” to the Early History of Rotary-wing Flight | Dr. Bruce Charnov |
Manufacturing Technology | Development of a Novel Erosion Resistant Coating System for Use on Rotorcraft Blades | Matthew Trexler and Victor Champagne, US Army Research Laboratory and Jack Kopchik, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. |
Modeling and Simulation | A Methodology for Rotorcraft Brownout Mitigation Through Flight Path Optimization | John Tritschler, Roberto Celi and J. Gordon Leishman, University of Maryland |
Operations | Hostile Fire Detection for Parapublic Operations | Randy Williams and Charles Shepard, Bell Helicopter Textron and Mike Paturzo and Barney McNelis, AAI Corporation |
Product Support Systems Technology | Numerical Approaches to Flight Reduction for Helicopter Rotor Track and Balance | Steve Pollard, Richard Hunt and Peter Morrish, Helitune Ltd and Nicholas Lieven, University of Bristol |
Propulsion | Hybrid Gear Preliminary Results - Application of Composites to Dynamic Mechanical Components | Robert Handschuh, Gary Roberts, Ryan Sinnamon, David Stringer and Lee Kohlman, NASA Glenn Research Center and B. Dykas, US Army Research Laboratory |
Structures and Materials | Probabilistic Damage Tolerance Analysis of Debonded Sandwich Composites | Michael Shiao, Tzi-Kang Chen and Dy Le, US Army Research Laboratory |
Systems Engineering | Leading Teams for Successful Clean Sheet Programs | Johnathan Lewis, Mike Manninen and Harold Tiedeman, Rockwell Collins |
Unmanned VTOL Aircraft and Rotorcraft | Development and Flight Testing of Flight Control Laws for Autonomous Operations Research on the RASCAL JUH-60A | Marc Takahashi, US Army; Matthew Whalley, Jay Fletcher, Ernesto Moralez, Carl Ott and Michael Olmstead, US Army AFDD (AMRDEC) and Chad Goerzen and Gregory Schulein, San Jose State University |