AeroSociety Podcast

“A giant among those pioneers who put our country in the forefront in the field of aero engines between the two World Wars”, he was the brain behind the Jupiter engine and set up Bristol Aeroplane Company’s engine division. In these reminiscences, Fedden discusses his early life and career, how he became involved in designing aero engines and gives insights into his time at Bristol. Fedden left Bristol in 1942 and became a consultant at the Ministry of Aviation. He discusses his mission to Germany in the early months after the war which did much to bring back to Britain the cutting edge technology being pioneered under the Nazi regime. He also reflects on a contrasting mission to learn lessons from American aircraft firms. The recording of Sir Roy Fedden HonFRAeS was made on 5 December 1969, it was digitised thanks to a grant from the RAeS Foundation and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS. Please note, due to the age of this recording, there are periods of poor sound quality during the lecture.

Lee Evans, Senior Test Pilot at Leonardo Company delivered an incredible aviation story about operating Lynx helicopters to a Royal Navy ice breaker in the harshest environment on our planet. Using incredible video footage and photographs from his time as a Fleet Air Arm pilot on-board HMS Endurance, Lee highlighted the challenges of operating helicopters in Antarctica – the harshest environment on Earth. He talked about the history of Antarctic helicopter Aviation and how shipborne helicopters from HMS Endurance provided essential support for the UK Hydrographic Office, Foreign Commonwealth Office and British Antarctic Survey. He also spoke about what it was like to be a filming pilot for the BBC Natural History blockbuster ‘Planet Earth’ and how the crews had to overcome unpredictable winds, snow, ice, mountains, wildlife, icebergs and rough seas on a daily basis. Thank you to our sponsor and continued supporter, Leonardo. https://uk.leonardocompany.com/en/home

Glaciologist, qualified pilot and experienced navigator Dr Charles Swithinbank spent sixty years using aeroplanes to help him study ice sheets in an era when the aeroplane was replacing dogs and boats as the main way of studying and visiting the polar regions. In this lecture he retells many fascinating stories from his career, including pioneering the use of radar on aircraft to measure the thickness of ice, finding natural runways suitable for the landing of aircraft of any size and in his 80s, accepting invitations from NASA to pick his brain on how his polar experience might inform future manned missions to Mars – he volunteered to go to Mars and help, but NASA politely declined. Dr Charles Swithinbank addressed a meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Historical Group on 3 September 2012 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.

This webinar will focus on the new EASA regulation that airlines operating in Europe must implement by Autumn 2020 and also offer a unique opportunity to preview what the Conference in 2021 will have to offer. The FSF have published a document on aviation professionals maintaining personal wellbeing both under current circumstances and more broadly. The Guide is a short practical document, based on academic research, that is intended for individual use and can be found at the FSF website on the following page for download: https://flightsafety.org/toolkits-resources/covid-19-safety-roadmap-and-punch-lists/

The COVID 19 outbreak has presented challenges worldwide to the helicopter operator. A mixture of military, civil utility and aeromedical helicopters have been pressed into service to transport patients, and the rapid development of the pandemic has allowed little time for ‘best practice’ to be developed. In the face of operational pressures manufacturers, military regulators and operators have pressed solutions into service to meet demand. The purpose of this webinar will be to provide for the first time a common forum for key stakeholders to come together and share experience – good and bad – of how those in the front line of service provision have managed the enormous challenges presented. The UK military guidelines that underline operations being performed by the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy will be described. The OEM view from Leonardo Helicopters will be shared, with particular emphasis on operations in North America. Closer to home, the operations of coast guard providers in Iceland, Ireland and the UK will also be reviewed to capture complex operations being executed in that domain.

Putting tens of thousands of extra people through an airport in a short period is always a challenge, especially if they have three times the average amount of luggage containing such things as firearms, specialist wheelchairs and canoes – now try putting it through the world’s third busiest airport; a bad press might affect future plans and, by the way, twenty thousand of those additional customers are from the world’s media. Andy Garner, BAA’s London 2012 Director and the man responsible for the smooth running of the Olympic Traffic at Heathrow tells members of the RAeS Air Transport Group Lecture about the challenges the airport faced in 2012 and how they overcame them with record-breaking customer satisfaction rates. Andy Garner FRAeS addressed a meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Air Transport Group on 23 October 2012 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.

On 3 August 2016, a Boeing 777-300 crash landed on the runway at Dubai, UEA, after an attempted ‘go-around’. On board were 282 passengers, two flight crew and 16 cabin crew. As the aeroplane slid along the runway, the No.2 (right) engine separated from the wing and there was an intense fuel fire in this area, as well as fire to the No.1 (left) engine. After the aeroplane came to a stop the Commander ordered the evacuation, but because of the high winds and the external fire there were several issues with the evacuation. The GCAA Final Report on this accident will be used to frame a discussion on some of the key findings, lessons and recommendations that can be taken away from this accident. These may include discussion of technical information provided by manufacturers, coordination of cabin evacuations, the part played by fire and rescue services, environmental factors, training programmes and safety systems.

The dreams of British airship designers literally went up in smoke when the R.101 crashed, killing 48 onboard, including the Air Minister Lord Thomson and Sir Sefton Brancker, the legendary Director of Civil Aviation. After taking us through the development of the British airship programme, Peter Davison & Giles Camplin discuss the R.101 development programme, the run up to the airship’s departure on 4 November 1930 and their view of the events that happened in the early hours of 5 November. Peter Davison & Dr Giles Camplin addressed a meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Historical Group on 4 November 2010 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.

“There is something special…. about big delta aeroplanes. Somehow Concorde and the Vulcan capture the public imagination like no other jet aircraft.” 14 years after its last flight & with over £7 million spent, Vulcan XH558 roared into the air on 18 October 2007. Five months before the launch and right at the end of the project’s restoration phase, Robert Pleming, Chief Executive of Vulcan to the Sky Trust, gave members of the RAeS Historical Group insights into the technical and non-technical challenges that the project team faced in order to get the British strategic bomber back into the skies. The lecture is followed by a question and answer session in which Vulcan veterans and others find out more about the project. Dr Robert Pleming FRAeS addressed a meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Historical Group on 17 May 2007 and the podcast and film was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.

The Cold War hotted up sixty years ago when a Lockheed U-2 spy plane, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", was shot down by a surface-to-air missile during a mission over the Soviet Union. In his lecture, historian Chris Pocock tells us the fascinating background history behind the series of missions that led to one of the USA’s most embarrassing post-war incidents. Chris Pocock addressed a joint meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Historical & Air Power Groups on 15 April 2010 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.

Water aircraft captain Tony Irwin gives us insights into the world of marine aircraft, both past and present. After giving a brief history of water flying he explores the aircraft he has experienced through his long career, discusses his work developing the Seawind water plane, highlights the challenges faced by those designing and flying water planes and how they have been overcome, whilst telling anecdotes along the way. Capt. Tony Irwin addressed a meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s General Aviation Group on 8 May 2012 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.

The race to be the first man in the UK to fly a powered aircraft brought two towering figures to the fore; the former cowboy and showman S. F. Cody, and the man who went on to form and run one of the UK’s major aircraft firms, A. V. Roe. Philip Jarrett takes us through the evolution of each man’s aircraft up to the first UK flight in 1908, before exploring how they both adapted their designs during the early days of the new era. The lecture is followed by a wide-ranging question and answer session that covers the pre-1914 days of aeronautics in the UK and beyond. Philip Jarrett HONCRAeS addressed a meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Historical Groups on 15 April 2008 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS

In his fascinating and entertaining history of aeronautics, the son of Igor Sikorsky weaves his father’s story into the achievements of his fellow pioneers in the science and industry of powered flight. Sergei Sikorsky draws on his father’s views of figures such as Otto Lilienthal, the Wright Brothers and Charles Lindbergh to tell the story of Igor Sikorsky’s career designing and building aircraft in Imperial Russia, France and the USA before moving back to his first love, the helicopter. Sergei Sikorsky addressed the 2007 Handley Page Lecture to the Royal Aeronautical Society on 26 April 2007 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.

RAE and Fast Jet Test Squadron test pilot Clive Rustin recounts stories from some of the 165 aircraft types he flew over half a century of “flying fun”. Clive starts this barnstorming lecture by explaining how he moved into test flying to pursue his love of flying and to ensure that his father, whose hard work paid for him to go through university, did not think he had wasted his Chemical Engineering degree. After a time flying Hawker Hunters and English Electric Lightnings, he passed through the Empire Test Pilot School in 1961 before flying over 70 types as an experimental test pilot and then OC Flying at the Aerodynamics and Research Flight at RAE Bedford. There his work included supersonic research for Concorde, V/STOL projects including the Hawker Siddeley P.1127/Kestrel evaluation flight and research into short-field landing; though he started on the Fairey Delta 2 simulator before a memorial flight on the real thing. After passing through Staff or “Stuff” College, as he called it, he describes the flying work undertaken under his command at RAE Farnborough in the early 1970s, together with stories of his time flying for a transatlantic blind landing V/STOL project. In 1974 he was posted as OC of the Jet Test Squadron at Boscombe Down, where his team ran clearance programmes for the military, and tells stories of his work with the Jaguar, Harrier, Phantom and Hunter. Though his RAF career finished at the RAF Handling Squadron at Boscombe Down, his flying career continued and Clive goes on to tell a little of his time as an airship captain and flying the Spitfire, Vampire and Venom in vintage aircraft displays. The lecture was addressed to the Royal Aeronautical Society’s General Aviation Group on 21 February 2012 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.

Using the skies to monitor your foe is an essential part of the nuclear age; a task that was made more difficult once the crash of the American U-2 aircraft made it clear that it was too dangerous to use observation aircraft. Starting the story from the dropping of the first atom bomb, Pat Norris explores how and why satellites system such the USA’s CORONA and the USSR’s Zenit 2 were developed and used, before exploring what lessons can be learnt today. The lecture was addressed to the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Space Group on 13 February 2008 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.