Electric VTOL Aircraft Design: Theory and Practice – Online Short Course (Starts 25 Feb 2025) 25 February - 27 March 2025 Online

• The course lectures will be delivered via Zoom. You can test your connection here: https://zoom.us/test
• All sessions will be available on-demand within 1-2 days of the lecture. Once available, you can stream the replay video anytime, 24/7. All slides will be available for download after each lecture.
• No part of these materials may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted, unless for course participants. All rights reserved.
• Between lectures, the instructors will be available via email for technical questions and comments.

Dr. Seyhan Gul is a research engineer at Science and Technology Corporation, NASA Ames Research Center. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland. His research focused on aeromechanics modeling of tiltrotor aircraft and prediction of high-speed aeroelastic stability and loads of hingeless hub proprotors. He developed Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center's new comprehensive analysis code UMARC-II. Gul also led a graduate team in 2018-2019 to design an extreme-altitude mountain rescue vehicle, which won the 36th VFS Student Design Competition. Before his Ph.D, he completed another Master's Degree at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara/Turkey and worked at Turkish Aerospace. There, he focused on comprehensive analysis and rotor/airframe loads predictions of T625 Gökbey Helicopter. Gul is a recipient of the prestigious Vertical Flight Foundation Scholarship and best paper awards in dynamics session at VFS Forum 77 and AIAA SciTech Forum in 2021.

Joshua Stewart is an Associate Chief Engineer at BAE Systems and a member of the VFS. He has been working in the aerospace industry for over 12 years. Over the last 7 years, Josh has been a technical leader in the development of high-power, high-voltage battery systems for aircraft propulsion at BAE Systems. Josh is involved with the analysis and development of electric and hybrid electric aircraft propulsion systems, including Li-Ion battery storage, high-fidelity battery management systems, power distribution, motor drives and cables. He has played a critical role in the development of aircraft propulsion solutions for CTOL and eVTOL aircraft. With a strong background in flight-critical avionics and energy storage for ground transit, Josh has been able to apply a broad systems approach to the design of battery systems, including design for thermal runaway propagation and containment. He holds a B.S. degree from Binghamton University and a M.S. degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Mechanical Engineering.

Michael Ricci is the Chief Technology Officer of LaunchPoint Electric Propulsion Solutions, and the driving force behind LaunchPoint’s “Propulsion By Wire” electric aircraft propulsion effort and spent the last decade as PI on a number of projects to develop electric aircraft propulsion technologies. These projects have included the development of highly efficient and powerful dual halbach array motors, high specific power wide bandgap semiconductor motor drives, and hybrid-electric gen-sets and bus power management systems. Applications have included HALE vehicles, helicopter electric tail rotors, multi-rotors, and eVTOL vehicles. During Mike’s 20+ year tenure at LaunchPoint he has worked on flywheel energy storage, implantable heart assist pumps, medical oxygen concentrators, engine valve actuators, and a magnetically levitated freight transportation system. Prior to joining LaunchPoint, Mr. Ricci worked as a mechanical engineer with Spectra F/X, a theme park engineering company, where he served as the lead Project Engineer on several very large custom systems with high cycle rates, intimate man-machine interfaces, and high human-safety concerns. Mike holds an M.S. degree from UC Santa Barbara in Mechanical engineering focused on control theory and a B.S. from Caltech in Engineering and Applied Sciences with a focus on electromechanical systems.

Prof. James Baeder is a member of the Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center as the Igor Sikorsky Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland at College Park. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University. He joined the Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center in 1993 after nine years at the Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate co-located at NASA Ames Research Center. He pioneered the development of multi-fidelity coupled CFD/ free-wake/ structural dynamics/ acoustic methods for heterogeneous computing environments. He is currently working on improving Computational Fluid Dynamics algorithms, with a focus on GPGPU technology, Meta-Machine Learning, and exploiting Hamiltonian paths and strands in unstructured meshes to capture: the details of laminar/turbulent transition; dynamic stall; as well as rotor tip vortex formation, convection and subsequent interaction with other surfaces including fuselages, towers or the ground. He has mentored 41 MS and 33 PhD students in addition to Capstone Design teams focused on Collegiate Wind Competition and Vertical Flight Society Undergraduate Design. He has authored more than 75 archival journal articles; served on various committees; and chaired sessions for both the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Vertical Flight Society. Dr. Baeder is a Technical Fellow of the Vertical Flight Society and a member of the Acoustics Technical Committee (1996-present).

Dr. James Wang has over 35 years of experience in aerospace and high-tech industries. He is an internationally renowned expert in eVTOL aircraft and advanced air mobility. In 2013, WIRED Magazine named Dr. Wang “The Steve Jobs of Rotorcraft” for his ability to think “outside the box” and pushing the transportation technology boundaries for inventing and designing the AgustaWestland Project Zero, the world’s first all-electric VTOL technology demonstrator aircraft. Dr. Wang has held many executive leadership positions, including as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Vice President of R&D at Leonardo Helicopters; led Strategic Sales and worked on numerous helicopter designs at Sikorsky Aircraft. He is the founder of Vtolwerke LLC which provides consulting services in advanced air mobility, eVTOL aircraft designing and problem solving, product development strategizing, and due diligence studies. Dr. Wang is currently a full professor teaching aircraft and eVTOL design.

Dr. Wang received his Bachelor’s degrees in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from M.I.T., and a Master’s and PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland. After completing his PhD, Dr. Wang started his career at Sikorsky Aircraft, where he was known as one of the most energetic and prolific engineers and managers; he contributed greatly to the Comanche, Black Hawk, Naval Hawk, S-92 and the Variable Diameter Tiltrotor programs.