Presidential Preface to the 22nd Congress

Among my duties as President, one of the most agreeable is certainly to present, on behalf of ICAS, the Proceedings of the 22nd Congress in Harrogate, U.K. Over more than forty years since its foundation in 1957, ICAS has brought together the international community of aeronautical scientists and engineers to exchange information and ideas, develop contacts and friendship, promote cooperation, further aeronautical progress, and strengthen education. ICAS's action has been greatly successful. Today, the aeronautical societies of 32 nations are members of ICAS and the biennial Congress attracts about 400 delegates and 300 technical papers covering all aspects of aeronautics.

In 2000, aviation approaches its second century. The last 100 years have witnessed wondrous technological events that have made the world more completely accessible, and since 1957 ICAS can be proud of having been associated with this outstanding progress.

However, much remains to be done in the years to come, in particular in the domain of technology acquisition which is of main interest for ICAS. A quick look at the papers of these Proceedings will give the reader an idea of the topics of today's interest in the various scientific/technical disciplines, and concerning the different industry products and strategic objectives.

Among the disciplines, aerodynamics remains of great concern, and a good balance still remains between the theoretical, numerical (CFD) and experimental (wind tunnel) aspects. Special emphasis is given to complex 3D configurations, high angle of attack conditions, vortex flows, active control and cryogenic wind tunnels. For structures and materials, both static and dynamic aspects are covered, with particular stress on design optimization, joints, aeroservoelastic instabilities, integrity and durability, and the very promising topic of smart structures. In propulsion, apart from the traditional interest for such topics as gas turbines, inlets and nozzles (in particular thrust – vectoring nozzles for military engines), there will be a special ISABE session devoted to propulsion – airframe integration. Flight dynamics and control concerns not only highly maneuverable combat vehicles and civil transport airplanes but also aerospace vehicles, missiles and now UAVs. Refined tools such as the bifurcation theory are used. There is still some interest for PIO (Pilot Induced Oscillations).

Applied research concerns the different industry products, very often in a multidisciplinary approach. For this integration, special optimization tools must be developed and used. For civil transport airplanes, the emphasis is put – of course – on the very large subsonic transport aircraft of the future, which poses very specific problems. Other papers concern the second-generation supersonic transport, regional transport, cargo aircraft, as well as other concepts such as flying wing or three – surface aircraft. For military aircraft both subjects of combat capabilities and ASTOVL (Advanced Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing) are stressed. Rotorcraft give rise in particular to coupled aerodynamical and dynamical investigations. Other papers concern guided weapons – especially hypersonic missiles – and UAVs. Lastly, interest is also shown for systems, subsystems and equipment, in particular controls and actuators, flight deck and avionics, and cabin systems.

Strategic objectives are not only higher performance, but also greater safety and – even more and more today – lower cost and environmental impact. Because of the important increase of air traffic, the rate of accidents will rise if no progress is made on elementary components of safety. Several papers are devoted to flight in adverse atmospheric conditions (turbulence, microburst, icing), wake vortex and, of course, human factors, which still are responsible of a great percentage of accidents. Safety is an important component of civil aircraft operations covered by papers on air traffic management, satellite navigation and free – flight concept. For military operations, additional topics such as route planning and training of pilots are also considered. Cost reduction is a key factor in a very competitive environment. Some papers deal with the DOC (Direct Operational Cost) reduction through reduced fuel consumption (better engines, drag reduction), others with cost reduction in the design, development, and manufacturing phases. Finally, reduction of environmental impact becomes more and more a societal issue. Several papers are devoted to aircraft noise and pollution.

These Congress Proceedings contain most of the papers listed in the final programme and which will be presented at the Congress. These papers were selected by an international Programme Committee of about 50 experts from almost 500 submitted abstracts.

Three invited General Lectures will be given by distinguished experts. These are "Future challenges and opportunities in aerodynamics" by A. Kumar, "Challenges in the better, faster, cheaper era of aeronautical design engineering and manufacturing" by E. Murman, and "Free flight" by D. Watrous.

As usual, the opening and closing lectures of the Congress are associated with ICAS Awards of great distinction. The Congress will begin with the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Lecture and Award to recognize a particular individual and area of important scientific advance. The lecturer and awardee will be Professor B.E. Launder, UMIST (UK). The Congress will close with the von Karman Award Lecture which recognizes an outstanding achievement in international collaboration. It is entitled "International collaboration in super/hypersonic propulsion system research project (HYPR)" and will be presented by M. Ito, ESPR (Japan).

Special thanks are due to all the authors, whose work is included in these Proceedings, and to the international Programme Committee and its Chairman, Wolfgang Schmidt, who have evaluated, selected and organised the papers to create an outstanding Congress. The Executive Secretary of ICAS, Clement Dousset, worked long and hard to prepare the Preliminary, then the Final Programme and the Proceedings, and the UK Organizing Committee, chaired by Ian Poll, has been very efficient in arranging and hosting this event.

I am sure that, thanks to all these efforts, the ICAS Congress, in this very special year 2000, will be both a technical and social success.

 

Jean-Pierre Marec

ICAS President