Message from RAeS

OUR PRESIDENT

Prof Jonathan Cooper

Maintaining and enhancing our international footprint remains one of the Society’s strategic aims. Following on from the signing of the MoU with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in May, several meetings have been held between the RAeS and AIAA to determine ways of working together for the mutual benefit of both societies. A number of interactions have been planned to move forward with this collaboration including further joint webinars, shared events for Young Members and co-operation on D&I. Several other avenues of interaction were discussed including potential comembership of certain Specialist Groups/technical committees (in AIAA speak) and joint honours and awards. I will be highlighting further developments in the future.

Many of our student members have been going through a difficult time recently with the last academic year having to suddenly change its mode of delivery from March onwards. The focus is now on what will happen in September. I recently attended a meeting of the STEM Professional, Statutory and Regulating Bodies (PSRB) and a large number of universities who provide degrees in these areas. A wide-ranging discussion ensued, covering best practice and shared experience in delivering a ‘blended’ (part virtual – part face-to-face) teaching experience across Lab and Practicals, Assessment, Group Work and Team Projects. There was also a session focussed on answering questions from a panel of students from across the UK, who were particularly worried about whether their degrees would remain accredited. I would like to reassure all students on aerospace degree courses that the Society is in touch with all universities and colleges to ensure that they remain accredited. I will also be hosting another Academic Forum in the autumn to ensure that best practice is shared across the aerospace engineering universities.

MAINTAINING AND ENHANCING OUR INTERNATIONAL FOOTPRINT REMAINS ONE OF THE SOCIETY’S STRATEGIC AIMS

As the world moves out of the economic slump caused by Covid, the UK needs to ensure that it is well-placed to be part of the new technological developments that will bring about hybrid-electric and eventually full-electric flight. These will become one of the major changes in aviation that occurs once every 30 years or so (eg jet engines, pressurised cabins, composite structures, etc). The UK must ensure that it is part of these technological developments so that it can gain access to the very large worldwide market that will eventually materialise, enabling job creation and a focus to provide skills developments across industry and academia. The aerospace and aviation industries have survived events in the past such as 9-11, SARS and the financial crash in the 1980s and have then thrived, so I am sure that this will be the case as we move into 2021. The UK must be ready to grab any opportunities that arise. It was therefore rather disappointing that the recently published HM Government R&D Roadmap¹ made no explicit mention of aviation and, although zero-emissions vehicles did appear in the document, the focus was on the automotive sector.

However, not all is lost, the £125m Future Flight Challenge, aiming to enable greener flight and facilitate urban air mobility is starting to ramp up and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps recently stated2 2 that there was a desire to bring together leaders from aviation, environmental groups and Government to form a Jet Zero Council charged with making net-zero emission flights possible. However, the goal of “within a generation – will be to demonstrate flight across the Atlantic, without harming the environment” will be an extremely challenging problem, requiring much more than simply the development of new battery or hydrogen technologies. I look forward to hearing much more about this initiative and hope that it will involve a co-ordinated effort across industry and academia.

Having had to bring our conference programme to an abrupt halt in March, I am very pleased to see that our autumn conference programme will be brought to you in a virtual environment. Our first two conferences are, Safeguarding Earth’s Space Environment taking place on the 10 September and Extreme Threats to the UK taking place on 17 September. Along with high-level speaker presentations and discussion, there will still be lots of opportunities for networking and interaction, these conferences won’t just be another webinar! The Society aims to continue to welcome and connect with audiences from across the world, who would never have considered travelling to No.4 Hamilton Place in London for an in-person event. For more information on all our conferences that are taking place up to the end of 2020, the virtual experience and to register please visit our website https://www.aerosociety.com/events/. I look forward to you joining us.

¹ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/896799/UK_Research_and_Development_Roadmap.pdf

² https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/transport-secretarys-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-12-june-2020

OUR CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Sir Brian Burridge

- Writing in his organisation’s magazine, IATA CEO Alexandre de Juniac, pointed out that ‘a world without aviation is a bleak place’. How very true but it is worth looking deeper for the antidote to this bleakness and recognise the concerted and highly innovative efforts being made across the sector to restore passenger confidence and meet the future environmental challenges. Cabin interiors are being re-thought with interesting new designs like Zephyr’s stacked seating, Teague’s AirShield directional cabin airflow system and HeadZone’s foldable, cardboard shield that slips over the back of the seat. Further ahead, there is renewed impetus behind hydrogen propulsion and airborne storage. The UK Government’s creation of the Jet Zero Council charged with making netzero possible could be highly significant, provided that it is backed by more than just sentiment. Meanwhile, Team Tempest is going from strength to strength. Taken together, these initiatives should prove attractive to the coming generation to discover for themselves that there is more excitement than bleakness to be had from a career in aerospace.

- Related to this, our activity on apprenticeship, End Point Assessment, has moved up a gear during recent months as employers either enlarge their schemes or are already working on next year’s programmes. In addition, we are on-track to install a modern and easy-to-use learning and professional development platform in the coming weeks. Through our new Learning Management System (LMS), accessible via desktop and app, we will showcase a range of RAeS and external content, which includes eLearning courses, webinars, video and audio lectures, articles, e-books and journals. The new LMS will replace our current professional development recording platform, mycareerpath. Members will thus have a more seamless and mobile-friendly way to record and engage with CPD. As ever, maintaining our expertise and profile as a Professional Engineering Institution remains a key objective.

- If this is just one example of our digital transformation, there are also others in the pipeline. The President mentions opposite that we have contracted a virtual conference delivery partner with 11 conferences in the programme for the rest of 2020. We are also finalising the purchase of ProQuest’s Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Database, which will give members access to full-text papers and articles and extensive abstracts. This is an excellent research and CPD tool which covers a wide range of relevant topics. Also of interest, the NAL Film Archive is proving very popular internationally. If you think you can tell the difference between a Brabazon, a Vanguard and a Britannia, try our competition at http://www.aerosociety.com/moviecomp. The winner will be announced on 30 July and will receive a NAL goody bag.

WRITING IN HIS ORGANISATION’S MAGAZINE, IATA CEO ALEXANDRE DE JUNIAC, POINTED OUT THAT ‘A WORLD WITHOUT AVIATION IS A BLEAK PLACE’

- Our programme of lectures and webinars continues unfettered by the requirements of Covid-19 with the success of the Sopwith Lecture as a particular high-spot. Delivered by the CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, Dirk Hoke, we had a global audience of almost 400 and significant follow-up press coverage. Other events all with very high attendance have encompassed Drone Operations for Good, the African Drone Forum, Artificial Intelligence and Aviation and Secrets of the Battle of Britain. In addition, we have delivered a Corporate Partner brief on Team Tempest by Michael Christie of BAE Systems and a ‘brains-trust’ panel with Katherine Bennett FRAeS from Airbus, Paul Briggs from Bird & Bird and Paul Richardson from AAR Corp providing valuable insights to into the aerospace industry post-Covid-19. All these webinars are subsequently uploaded to the RAeS YouTube channel.

- On External Affairs, in early July we saw further job-loss announcements from large aviation and aerospace employers. The Society responded, noting that the road to recovery will take time and that it is important to consider the wider impact. To that end, we reinforced the extent of the careers advice service that we offer. Meanwhile, the Flight Operations Specialist Group published the second edition of their widely used ‘Emergency Evacuation of Commercial Passenger Aeroplanes’. Many thanks to all of those who contributed to the report, especially to Nick Butcher and Terry Buckland for their stewardship. The full report is available on our website and there is also an Aerospace Insight blog.

- Finally, to return to combatting bleakness, where better to go than our Young Persons’ Committee? Robin Saaristo has taken-over as the chair and voting has closed for the AeroTube entries: there was an exceptional batch of submissions. The winners were the team entry from Dr Rohan Sant and Dr Daniel Olaiya discussing overarching themes in Aerospace Medicine and the difficulties for humans in space. The second award goes to Sergio Hidalgo who presented the challenges of supersonic flight: both videos are available on the website.