News from the AIAA AVIATION Forum

Companies and organizations are making announcements and sharing news during the 2023 AIAA AVIATION Forum. Read more here:

Tuesday, 13 June 2023
Whisper Aero unveiled a mockup of its Whisper Jet and propulsion technology in its booth in the forum Exposition Hall. Whisper Aero CEO Mark Moore announced the company’s plans and described how the ducted fan has been optimized for lowest noise and highest efficiency during a talk on the Innovation Stage at the HUB in the Exposition Hall. Read more about it from Aerospace America.

Monday, 12 June 2023
AIAA released a white paper to advance the use of Digital Threads across the aerospace industry. The paper, “Digital Thread: Definition, Value, and Reference Model,” is a collaboration with the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and the Americas Regional Steering Committee of the International Association for the Engineering Modelling, Analysis and Simulation Community (NAFEMS). Released at the 2023 AIAA AVIATION Forum on 12 June, the paper is available for download  from the AIAA website. A prominent theme during the forum, the Institute believes digital transformation is the fourth industrial revolution. “The aerospace industry needs to accelerate its adoption and realization of digital engineering to achieve the value and benefits from this technology advancement,” said AIAA Executive Director Dan Dumbacher.

Monday, 12 June 2023
NASA Announces Newest X-Plane
NASA and Boeing said Monday, 12 June, during the 2023 AIAA AVIATION Forum that its eco-friendly experimental aircraft is NASA’s newest X-plane. The aircraft produced through the agency’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project has been designated by the U.S. Air Force as the X-66A. During the 2023 AIAA AVIATION Forum, the agency said the new X-plane seeks to inform a potential new generation of more sustainable single-aisle aircraft – the workhorse of passenger airlines around the world.
Full story  (NASA)

Monday, 12 June 2023
Megawatt Electrical Motor Could Electrify Aviation
CleanTechnica reported that a team of MIT engineers “is now creating a 1-megawatt motor that could be a key stepping-stone toward electrifying larger aircraft.” The team has “designed and tested the major components of the motor, and shown through detailed computations that the coupled components can work as a whole to generate one megawatt of power, at a weight and size competitive with current small aero-engines.” T. Wilson Professor in Aeronautics and the Director of the Gas Turbine Laboratory (GTL) at MIT Zoltan Spakovszky, who leads the project, said, “No matter what we use as an energy carrier – batteries, hydrogen, ammonia, or sustainable aviation fuel – independent of all that, megawatt-class motors will be a key enabler for greening aviation.” Spakovszky and members of his team, along with industry collaborators, “will present their work at a special session of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics – Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium (EATS) at [AIAA AVIATION Forum this week].” 
Full story  (CleanTechnica)