Vertical Flight Society | UK Chapter

Only two weeks to go! Join us at the VFS-UK Annual Chapter Event on 23 February in London for talks on helicopter flight tests and exciting updates on new eVTOL start-ups. Join us in celebrating the VFS-UK Award Ceremony and learn about the career highlights of our esteemed lifetime achievement awardees. Stay tuned, book your dates and trips now!

The Vertical Flight Society-UK Chapter is organising the Annual Chapter Event 2024 on the 23rd of Feb, 2024. This year, in addition to invited talks by experts in the rotorcraft field and ceremony for chapter awards, we will also hear some exciting announcements during the event.

Stay tuned and book your dates!

This event will be held at the historical Royal Air Force Club in London. All VFS members living or working in the UK are cordially invited to participate. If you haven’t booked your place, please be quick as tickets are selling out. You can use the Eventbrite below:

Vertical Flight Society – UK Chapter Annual Event Tickets, Fri 23 Feb 2024 at 10:00 | Eventbrite

The joint RAeS/VFS-UK conference on turbulence effects have been a great success! The event was held at Shrigley Hall, Cheshire, on 24-05.

This event brought together brilliant presenters from the UK and abroad. The audience was treated with 12 extraordinary presentations over a tight day, sparking insightful discussions.

A great thank you to all presenters and participants! The presentation details will be made available to all participants soon.

The technical program and instructions for the joint VFS-UK/RAeS Conference: “Turbulence, the unseen threat to vertical flight” are now released!

This event will take place at Shrigley Hall Hotel & Spa, Pott Shrigley, Cheshire, SK10 5SB, 24th May 2023. Leading experts around the UK will gather to deliver outstanding presentations on turbulent effects.

• Technical Program

9:30	Welcome & Introduction
9:45	Paper1 Federico Rovere, G. Barakos, and R. Steijl, “Brownout Modelling“, Univ. of Glasgow
10:15	Paper2 Tao Zhang, George Barakos, Furqan, and Malcolm Foster, “High-fidelity Aerodynamic Modelling of the Operation of a Heavy-lift eVTOL“, Univ. of Leicester, Univ. of Glasgow, GKN Aerospace
10:45	Paper3 Sam Bull, Dami Adeyemi, and Dom Wilson, “Experimental Investigation of a Mini-tab Device for Whirl Flutter Control“, Univ. of Bath
	Coffee break
11:00	Paper4 Neale A. Watson, Mark Prior, Ieuan Owen, Mark D. White, “The Effect of Turbulent Wakes on Rotorcraft Recovery to an Offshore Platform“, Univ. of Liverpool
11:30	Paper5 Nicholas Fernande, Christopher Dadswell, Ieuan Owen, Mark D. White, “Development of a Real-Time Piloted Simulator Framework for Rotorcraft Operations in Dynamic Environment “, Univ. of Liverpool
12:00	Paper6 Dave Howson, “Development of a wind turbulence criterion for the safe operation of helicopters to offshore installations“, CAA (online presentation)
	Lunch break
14:00	Paper7 V. Page and M. Jump, “Simulation of a quadcopter tethered to a fixed object in a reduced order model turbulent environment“, Univ. of Liverpool
14:30	Paper8 I. C. Ardelean, D. Usov, B. Parslew, P. Hollingsworth, and A. Fillipone, “Verification of Energy-Based Path Planning Methods in Urban Wind Environment for Aerial Robotics“, Univ. of Manchester
15:00	Paper9 Lars Christian Munch, Rémi Jacques Gérard Gan, Jacob Bach Meldal, and Thomas Vesth, “Characterization of freestream- and wind turbine wake-added turbulence for Rotor-Nacelle Assembly- and support structure design purposes”, Oersted
	Coffee break
15:15	Paper10 Jamie M, Sayer, Merrick Stanley, “Flight Model Interaction with Airflow Disturbance Field”, QinetiQ
15:45	Paper11 Terry Bullock, “Impacts of Turbulence and Thermal Plumes on Offshore Eastern Canada Helicopter Operations“, WSP
16:15	Paper12 Douglas Barnes, “Regulatory Environment and Issues in relation to UAS Operation”, AAIB
16:45	Summary, discussion
17:30	End

• Instruction for Presenters

• The regular presentation time is 25 minutes + 5 minutes for Q&A. Presentation as PowerPoint or PDF.
• A laptop, projector, and microphone will be provided on-site. It is recommended that you upload/copy your presentation to the laptop before your session. If you wish to use your personal equipment, please connect and calibrate in advance before your session.
• Virtual attendance: if you cannot attend in person and prefer a virtual presentation, please record your presentation and send to the Organising Committee by 22-05. Please make sure to connect for the Q&A session (Where appropriate, presentations will be synchronised online. Links are to be confirmed.)
• The presentation language is English. Please prepare all your documents and slides in English.
• There are no specifications or guidelines for the design of your slides. However, please use standard fonts such as Arial, Geneva, Helvetic or Lucida Sans in your presentation. Otherwise, we cannot exclude the possibility of unintentional text displacement in your presentation on the presentation computer.

• Copyright Statement: the authors confirm that they and/or their company or organisation hold copyright on all original material included. The authors also confirm that they have obtained permission, from the copyright holder of any third-party material included in this paper, to publish it as part of their presentation. The authors confirm that they give permission or have obtained permission from the copyright holder to present at this event.

For more info and updates, please follow the official site of VFS-UK at uk.vtol.org and Linkedin ‘Vertical Flight Society UK Chapter’. We look forward to seeing all the attendees at the event!

Conference registration is now open for the joint VFSUK-RAeS Conference: “Turbulence, the unseen threat to vertical flight”. The conference will take place at Shrigley Hall Hotel & Spa, Pott Shrigley, Cheshire, SK10 5SB, 24th – 25th May 2023. Leading experts around the UK will gather to deliver outstanding presentations on turbulent effects. The technical programme and instructions for speakers will be released soon.

• Conference Registration

For conference registration, please use the online store set by the University of Manchester below:

https://5n.gs/c2h4NU

• Hotel Booking

If you need to book a room at Shrigley Hall, please use the Eventbrite link below. The link is valid until 17 April, after which rooms will have to be booked directly with the hotel.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/vfs-conference-on-turbulence-effects-on-rotorcraft-tickets-607439938207

We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

Conference Topic: “Turbulence, the unseen threat to vertical flight”
Venue: Shrigley Hall Hotel & Spa, Pott Shrigley, Cheshire, SK10 5SB
Date: 24th – 25th May 2023

Please follow this page for more updates.

This conference focusses on the topic of operating vertical lift aircraft from maritime, urban locations and any other location where mechanical and/or thermal turbulence is a threat to safety. Both thermal and mechanical turbulence continues to be an issue when landing and taking off from helidecks located close to other structures, such as a ship super structure or an oil platform. There is also emerging evidence that the turbulence from large wind turbines will affect helicopter handling qualities, for example when conducting Search and Rescue missions inside a wind farm. Furthermore, many of these issues will also apply to future Advanced Air Mobility or Unmanned Aerial Systems as buildings can generate similar levels of turbulence. This conference is specifically aimed at bringing together all the interested parties to address the various elements of safely operating vertical lift vehicles in a turbulent environment. Papers to examine these problems are sought in the following areas:

1.  Modelling, test, and certification

What are the best techniques for identifying and modelling the effects of turbulence on a vehicle’s response? How can additional sources of data, such as Flight Data Monitoring and LIDAR be used to contribute towards modelling, testing and certification? Identification of new certification standards requirements for the assessment of turbulence on a vehicle’s response?

2. Training

Operational issues with operating in a turbulent environment: how to train and prepare pilots for operating in turbulent conditions. Flight simulator fidelity requirements to replicate turbulent conditions.

3. Design

Vessel, platform, building and wind farm design and layout to minimise/mitigate turbulence.

Organising Committee:

George Barakos George.Barakos@glasgow.ac.uk, Mark White mdw@liverpool.ac.uk, Antonino Filippone a.filippone@manchester.ac.uk, Tao Zhang tz77@leicester.ac.uk, Mark Prior Mark@mpriorconsulting.com

Abstract submission:

Abstracts, between 500 and 1000 words, should be submitted to one of the members of the organising committee by 12/02/23. Selected papers will be published in a special edition of an archival journal.

Notification of authors: 28/02/2023, Submission of papers: 12/05/2023