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 in-person meeting included more than 275 technical papers on every discipline from Acoustics to Test and Evaluation. Forum Proceedings papers can be purchased as individual pdf files 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 80 winning technical papers are linked below.
| Technical Area | Title of Paper | Author(s) |
| Safety: Winner of the Alfred Gessow Forum Best Paper Award | Scenario-Based Helicopter Flight Simulation of Accident-Prone Vortex Ring State (VRS) Encounters | Eleni Sotiropoulos-Georgiopoulos, Alexia Payan, Dimitri Mavris, Georgia Institute of Technology; Charles Johnson, Federal Aviation Administration |
| Acoustics | Frequency Domain gappy-POD for Rotor Acoustic Measurement Optimization | Charles E. Tinney, Yingjun Zhao-Dubuc, John Valdez, University of Texas at Austin |
| Advanced Vertical Flight | Nonlinear Flight Dynamics Modeling of an Air-Launched Tailsitter UAS | Reuben-Wayne Stewart, Jack Dooher, Moble Benedict, Texas A&M University |
| Aerodynamics | Comprehensive Aerodynamic Analysis of PIV Measurements in the NFAC 80- by 120-ft Test Section Towards Understanding HVAB Hovering Rotor Characteristics | Manikandan Ramasamy, US Army CCDC AvMC; James T. Heineck, Cloria K. Yamauchi, Edward T. Schairer, Thomas R. Norman, NASA Ames Research Center |
|
Aircraft Design (best overall in Vehicle Design disciplines) |
Dragonfly Rotor Optimization using Machine Learning Applied to an OVERFLOW Generated Airfoil Database | Jason Cornelius, NASA Ames Research Center; Sven Schmitz, The Pennsylvania State University |
| Autonomy and UAS | VTOL UAS Auto-recovery Using A Tested Long-Term Motion Prediction Method to Define the Deck Environment | Bernard Ferrier, FRAeS Frina, Syntek Technologies Inc.; B. Watson, Royal Navy; M. R. Belmont, J. T. Christmas, University of Exeter |
| Avionics and Mission Systems (best overall in Systems Integration disciplines) | The Canadian Vertical Lift Autonomy Demonstration Project - High Level Concepts for the Development of Autonomy | Derek Gowanlock, Sion Jennings, Kris Ellis, Arthur Gubbels, Bryan Carrothers, Perry Comeau, National Research Council of Canada |
| Crash Safety | Development and Demonstration of a Critical Rotorcraft Safety System: Advanced Helicopter Seating System | Tyrone Minton, The Protective group; Marv Richards, Safe - A Point Blank Company; John Crocco, DEVCOM AvMC |
| Crew Stations and Human Factors | Development and Flight Demonstration of An Active Seat Mount System for Aircrew Whole-Body Vibration Mitigation on NRC Bell-412 Helicopter | Yong Chen, Amin Fereidooni, Viresh Wickramasinghe, National Research Council Canada |
| Dynamics | Aeromechanics Investigation of a Dual-Wing Lift Compounded Slowed Mach Scale Rotor | Vivek Uppoor, Mrinalgouda Patil, Inderjit Chopra, University of Maryland |
| Electric VTOL | Impact of Detailed SFC on Hybrid-Electric VTOL Sizing | Matt Arace, Anubhav Datta, University of Maryland |
| Handling Qualities (best overall in Aeromechanic disciplines) | Piloted Simulation Evaluation of MTEs for the Assessment of Low-Level Handling Qualities | Tim Jusko, German Aerospace Center - DLR; Tom Berger, US Army CCDC AvMC |
| Health and Usage Monitoring Systems | Criticality Determination of HUMS Applications for Life-Adjustment | Matt Harrigan, Sikorsky a Lockheed Martin Company |
| History | The Dirigible Helicopter: Korean-American Inventor Young Ha Koun's Ambitious attempt to Make Aircraft Survivable in the Event of Loss of Control | C. Sundiata Cowels, Future iNCITE! as the winner of the Bernard Lindenbaum Best Historical Paper |
| Manufacturing Tech. and Processing (best overall in Vehicle Integrity disciplines) | Multi-Physics Modeling and Optimization Towards a Digital Twin of Quenching Processes of Large-Scale Metallic Structures | Jim Lua, Kalyan Shrestha, Anand Karuppiah, Global Engineering and Materials Inc.; Jinhui Yan, University of Illinois; Joshua Piccoli, Nam D. Phan, Naval Air Warfare Center (PAX) |
| Modeling and Simulation | Vortex Ring State Prediction Using a Mid-fidelity Comprehensive Approach | Alessandro Cocco, University of Maryland; Federico Gentile, Matteo Dall'Ora, Giuseppe Quaranta, Politecnico di Milano |
| Operations (best overall in Operations and Product Support disciplines) | Low Noise Helicopter Operations Recommendations to Improve Helicopter Acceptance | Julien Caillet, Pierre Dieumegard, Frédéric Guntzer, Airbus Helicopters; Elise Ruaud, ONERA |
| Propulsion | Dynamics of a Variable Speed Hybrid Electric Helicopter Propulsion System | Hans DeSmidt, Zhisheng Ai, University of Tennessee |
| Structures and Materials | Fatigue Simulation Method based on the Calculation of the J-Integral in the Cohesive Zone Delamination Model | Gennadiy Nikishkov, Yuri Nikishkov, Guillaume Seon, Andrew Makeev, University of Texas at Arlington; Peter Matthews, US Army DEVCOM AvMC |
| Systems Engineering Tools and Processes | Updates in Development to the Digital Thread and CFD Modeling Framework for Robust Rotorcraft Design | Daniel Bernier, Stanrich Fernandes, Ritu Eshcol, Ryan Willmot, Michael Alexander, Lindsey Dusablon, Stephanie Keomany, Dustin Coleman, Donald Lamb, Rebecca Cotton, Dana Halline, Shyam Neerarambam, Sikorsky A Lockheed Martin Company |
| Test and Evaluation | Wind Tunnel Testing of X2™ Technology Spinning Coaxial Hubs with Aspirated Inlets - Comparison Between Two Wind Tunnel Models and with CFD | Dylan Dziuba, Peter Lorber, Benjamin Hein, Brian Wallace, Jeewoong Kim, Antonio Rivera, Colin Bunting, Shawn Sandor, Byung-Young Min, Patrick O. Bowles, Sikorsky A Lockheed Martin Company |