The Vertical Flight Society's Annual Forum & Technology Display is the world's leading international technical event on vertical flight technology. This year, the four-day virtual meeting included more than 219 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 Vertical Flight Online Library.
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 2004 – including the overall Alfred Gessow Best Paper Award – are recognized as some of the most important technical contributions in the field of vertical flight.
The Forum 78 winning technical papers are linked below.
Technical Area | Title of Paper | Author(s) |
Handling Qualities: Winner of the Alfred Gessow Forum Best Paper Award | Toward a UAS Handling Qualities Specification: Development of UAS-Specific MTEs | Christina M. Ivler, Kate Russell, University of Portland; Anthony Gong, Tom Berger, Mark J. S. Lopez, U.S. Army DEVCOM AvMC |
Acoustics | Helicopter Noise Source Separation Using an Order Tracking Filter | Joel Sundar Rachaprolu, Eric Greenwood, Pennsylvania State University |
Advanced Vertical Flight | Robotic Hummingbird versus Quadrotor: a Flight Dynamics and Gust Response Comparison | David Coleman, Moble Benedict, Texas A&M University |
Aerodynamics | High Speed and Highly Efficient Rotor Blade Design | Byung-Young Min, Vera Klimchenk, Annie Gao, Alex F. Dunn, Claude G. Matalanis, and Brian E. Wake, Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Co. |
Aircraft Design (best overall in Vehicle Design disciplines) | Wing Lift Enhancement from Aft Rotor Induced Suction | Richard Healy, Farhan Gandhi, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
Avionics & Systems | Evaluation of Flight Control System Architectures for the AH-64 | Bryan C. H. Chu, Gary Klein, Russell Enns, The Boeing Company |
Crash Safety (best overall in Vehicle Integrity disciplines) | Advanced Seat Belt System for Occupant Restraint | Marv Richards, Safe Inc. |
Crew Stations & Human Factors | Differential Role of Gravitoinertial Cues for Active and Passive Control in Degraded Visual Environments | Dr. Martine Godfroy-Cooper, U.S. Army TDD AvMC; Dr. J. C. Sarrazin, ONERA; Dr. E. Bachelder, J. D. Miller, U.S. Army TDD AvMC; Dr. B. Bardy, Euromov |
Dynamics | Time-Frequency Analysis of Experimental and Analytical Hub Loads of a Rotor Undergoing a Rotor Speed Change | Martin K. Sekula, NASA Langley Research Center; Carl Russell, NASA Ames Research Center |
Electric VTOL | Fabrication, Testing, and Comparative Analysis of Lithium Sulfur and Lithium-Ion Electrochemistries | Emily Fisler, Anubhav Datta, University of Maryland |
Health and Usage Monitoring Systems | Improving the Performance of Bearing Analysis | Eric Bechhoefer, Joshua Kethan, GPMS Inc. |
History | God's Machine: The Miracle at Gander | Paul J. Fardink, US Army (Retired) as the winner of the Bernard Lindenbaum Best Historical Paper |
Manufacturing Tech. & Processing | Manufacturing Innovation for Bell's Future Factory | Amber Pike, Bell Textron Inc. |
Modeling & Simulation | Rotorcraft Pitch-Surge Motion Cueing Requirements for a Simulated Offshore Approach Task | Josephine Roscoe, Mark D. White, Steven J. Hodge, Gareth D. Padfield, University of Liverpool |
Operations | Expectations, Test Results, and Lessons Learned: Flight Testing an RF DILR ALE | Mike Lengyel, Bob Burzynski, Dan Ferrante, Sid McManus, Elbit America |
Product Support Systems Technology | Scheduled Maintenance Program Development for the Leonardo AW609 Tiltrotor via the Maintenance Review Board Process Utilizing MSG-3 | Titos M. Gosalvez, Nicholas Flynn, Leonardo Helicopters |
Propulsion | Dynamic Load Analysis of Motion Converter Ball Bearings in a Pericyclic Transmission | Nick Weinzapfel, Nathan Bolander, Sentient Science; Tanmay Mathur, AgustaWestland; Hans DeSmidt, University of Tennessee; Edward Smith, Pennsylvania State University |
Safety | A Structured and Comprehensive Air Vehicle Risk Assessment | Laurence H. Mutuel, Bell Textron Inc. |
Structures & Materials | Improved Strain Gage Instrumentation Strategies for Rotorcraft Blade Measurements | Timothy Davis, U.S. Army DEVCOM AvMC |
Systems Engineering Tools & Processes | Sikorsky Airframe Full Spectrum Customer/Supplier Collaboration | Darryl Toni, Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company |
Test & Evaluation (best overall in Operations & Support disciplines) | Automatic Category A Takeoff for H145 – Development and Flight Testing | Carl Ockier, Dr. Daniel Reber, Marc Salesse-Lavergne, Paul Prévost, Airbus |