AeroSociety Podcast

C. H. Gibbs-Smith gives a Royal Aeronautical Society Historical Group lecture on 9 October 1973 on Sir George Cayley.

LISAPathfinder: Motivation, Instrumentation and Current Status Timothy will begin with the scientific motivation for LISAPathfinder (LPF) which rests firmly with the case for putting a gravitational wave observatory in space. LISA was proposed to the European Space Agency (ESA) as such an observatory in the mid-1990s and Timothy will describe the scientific potential of this type of payload as a candidate for the ESA L3 mission. From there he will outline the technology challenges and show how the critical elements of these are addressed by LPF. LPF was launched on 3rd December 2015 from Kourou and has now made its way the first Lagrange point. The scientific payload is being commissioned and by mid-April, it will be well into its scientific measurement campaign. Timothy will review preliminary performance data from the instrument and the space environment it finds itself in, and give a forward look on the remaining mission profile. He will also discuss additional scientific measurements which might be carried out pending feasibility studies. LISA Pathfinder: The Engineering Challenges 2002-2016 From the industrial engineering perspective LISA Pathfinder began life in 2001 with a proposal team in Stevenage given the task of shoe-horning an embryonic and complex instrument into a robust system design that could be built within specified costs and schedule. Good working relationships, essential for a project of this complexity, were established with the instrument team from Airbus Germany and more than thirty subcontractors from around Europe and the USA. His talk will span the life cycle of the project starting with the myriad of engineering challenges that faced this early team and how these were solved in order to allow the project to enter the detailed design phase and subsequent production. Ian will deal with both the accommodation of the very special needs of the instrument and also the external constraints and environments such as the launch vehicle and space itself. It will then progress through the implementation phase and highlight the several changes of direction and their resolutions that created many new challenges for the project team. He will conclude with the launch campaign and the in-orbit commissioning.

The advent of a civil certified tiltrotor offers operators of rotary wing fleets the chance to revolutionise their business models, achieving a new level of fleet optimisation and a step change in actual customer value. The tiltrotor will not simply replace traditional rotary and fixed wing types but it will work in concert with both to allow each type of aircraft to be used to its most efficient best purpose. Working together, AgustaWestland (AW) and Bristow have developed an increasingly clear understanding of how the tiltrotor will add value to the existing rotary wing fleets across many roles. To maximise the benefits available from the tiltrotor it has been necessary to remove the constraints applied to current operations, to permit free thinking and to admit applications that will be entirely new so as to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the tiltrotor configuration. The 2016 Alan Bristow Memorial Lecture will illustrate how AW and Bristow have collaborated to develop and define a unique view of how the civil tiltrotor will be absorbed into the traditional rotary wing fleets in ways that will optimise fleet usage in ways that are impossible today and add new capabilities that will drive significant improvements in overall customer satisfaction with the service on offer. Examples will be provided to illustrate the revolution that will be achieved by the use of the tiltrotor configuration.

This lecture looks back at the life of Captain Eric Brown – universally known as ‘Winkle’ who sadly passed away earlier this year.

A panel of speakers from the original 'core' Concorde crew team speak at the Society for the 40th anniversary of the start of successful supersonic passenger services.

Nigel Whitehead OBE FREng FRAeS CEng, Group Managing Director - Programmes and Support, BAE Systems plc delivers the 2015 Wilbur and Orville Wright Lecture.

James Hogan FRAeS, President & Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Airways talks at the Society for the 2015 Brabazon Named Lecture.

Commercial airline pilots undergo six monthly simulator assessments throughout the length of their entire career where they are comprehensively examined on both their technical and non-technical performance. This lecture will review the history and development of flight simulators and synthetic training devices from an aeromedical perspective. It will then briefly look at the content of a typical simulator assessment and consider how these training devices can be used at different stages of a pilot’s career. The presentation will explore how these training devices manipulate a variety of human physiological principles and limitations in order to maximize the fidelity of the training experience, with particular reference to the simulator motion and visual systems. Whilst the importance of flight simulators in the aeromedical decision-making process has been long established, the current use of synthetic training devices in aeromedical functional assessments for a variety of conditions will also be considered.

This lecture honours Capt Ray Jones, one of the Flight Simulation Groups founding members and celebrates his contribution to the development of the group, the advancement in the art and science of flight simulation and in particular application in the training of civil airline pilots. This year's lecture will be entitled 'Improving Instructor Standards and Regulating for the Best Safety Use of Flight Simulators' presented by Roger Weeks, Senior Manager Operations Safety at the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in Australia. In this lecture, Roger Weeks will share Australia’s experience with a major safety initiative introduced in 2007 to improve the standards of flying instructors. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) took a ‘back-to-basics’ approach in order to address concerns that pilot standards were declining. The program has been highly successful with improvements in graduation standards of flying instructors achieved. In the second part of the Captain Ray Jones Memorial Lecture, Roger will address the manner in which the use of flight simulators has been mandated for certain training and re-currency activities. In addition to addressing high-risk activities, the approach taken by CASA recognises the value and richness that can be gained by using simulators in type rating programs. Given Captain Jones’ pioneering work in civil airline simulator training, details of this initiative will be highly relevant to those who have an interest in, or involvement with the world of simulator training and testing.

In this lecture Steve Bond discussed elements of his latest book, the subject of which is a major history of the Vickers Wellington - the only RAF bomber to have served in its original role from the first day of World War II to the last, and in every theatre.

James Arbuthnot discusses the current government position on nuclear weapons, SDSR and the proposal that all NATO countries should move to spend 2% on defence at the 2015 Sopwith Named Lecture.

Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden Jr, Administrator, NASA speaks at the Society for this Space Group Lecture.

This year's lecture, 'Investigation in Simulation', was given by Nathalie de Ziegler, Investigating Officer, Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA). She described the interest of simulation during investigation, with a focus on human performance, and precautions to be taken which will be illustrated by a real case study.

The Royal Air Force, UK air power and the defence aerospace industry are at a critical point in their evolution. After 12 years of enduring stabilisation operations, UK air power is now reconfiguring towards Future Force 2020. But just what that future holds is unclear: greater complexity, less certainty and increased insecurity is the prediction. Air Marshal North offered the Royal Air Force view that the answer lies in adjusting how the two work together in the decades ahead, suggesting their respective futures are now fused as one.

Ballantyne Audio 2015 by AeroSociety Podcast