Technical Excellence From First-Time Technical Paper Presenters

The Vertical Flight Society announced the winners of its Robert L. Lichten technical award. The overall winner will be recognized during the 81st Annual Forum and Technology Display in Virginia Beach, Virginia, as part of the Opening General Session on May 20, 2025.

The Lichten Award was established in 1976 to encourage members who have not previously presented the results of their work at a technical meeting to begin doing so through presentations at local and regional VFS meetings.

Each of the ten global regions may select a regional winner to enter the international competition, from which the overall and runner-up winners are selected. The overall Lichten Award Winner is invited to present his/her technical paper at the Forum and receives complimentary travel to and lodging at the Forum, as well as a $500 honorarium sponsored by Bell Textron, Inc. The runner-up is also invited to present at the Forum and receives a certificate and complimentary Forum registration.

Angela Buccio of Bell Textron, Inc., was selected as the Overall Lichten Award Winner with her paper, “Modeling Unsteady Aerodynamics in RCAS for High-Speed Rotor Aeroelastic Applications.” Ms. Buccio won the Society’s Southwest U.S. Region Lichten Competition, and she will present her paper at Forum 81 on Wednesday May 21, during the Dynamics II session.

Duncan Waanders from the Georgia Institute of Technology was selected as the Lichten Award Runner-up for this year for his paper, “A Real-Time-Reduced Oder Model for the Atmospheric Boundary Layer Including Roughness Sublayer.” He was the VFS Southern U.S. Region Lichten Competition winner, and his paper will be presented during the Modeling & Simulation IV session on Thursday May 22.

The regional winners were:

Omar Abdel-Dayem of Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company was the winner of the US Northeast Region with his paper, “S-92 Main Gearbox (MGB) Upper Housing Usage-Based Earned Credit.”

Micaela I. Crispin of Pennsylvania State University was the Mideast US Region winner for her paper, “Modeling and Simulation for Control Allocation Design on an eVTOL Tiltrotor Aircraft.”

Eleonora Giovanardi of Leonardo Helicopters was the Europe-Africa Region winner for her paper, “Effects of Gyroscopic Phenomena on Tuned Vibration Absorbers Design and Performance.” Her paper will be presented during the Dynamics IV session on Thursday morning, May 22.

FMI:  vtol.org/