The SFTE EC Jesualdo Martinez Award In Flight Testing has been created to commemorate our colleague and board member Jesualdo Martines Rodanes, who tragically deceased in the accident of A400M MSN 23, in Seville in May 2015.
The 11th European chapter symposium was hosted by a team from The Netherlands and held at the Delft University of Technology.
The academic environment provided an appropriate atmosphere to encourage the international participants to get involved and also support one another.
The event started with an opening speech by Prof.Ir. E. Torenbeek, acting Rector Magnificus who welcomed the attendees to the University and expressed his hopes for a successful event. Before the technical presentations began there was a thought provoking keynote speech by Okko F. Bleeker of Rockwell Collins.
Over the 2 days there was a cross section of technical papers presented by representatives from many companies and organisations from around the world followed by a very interesting technical tour of just some of the facilities.
There was a unique opening paper covering the historical Flight Testing of the Gustav Weißkopf No 21 Flying machine by Horst Philipp of DASA, GE.
The sessions that followed over the next couple of days covered Programs, Instrumentation and Methods.
The Mayor of Delft, Mr M P Oosten hosted a reception in the beautiful surroundings of the historic town hall. The European Chapter President, Franz Enzinger, proposed a vote of thanks to the Mayor and the people of Delft for making the Society of Flight Test Engineers so welcome in a city with such a strong engineering background together with its artistic history.
A technical committee judged all the technical presentations and after wrestling with a difficult task pronounced the winners to be Henry Melton III and Michael A. Tribino for their very professional and interesting presentation.
The formalities of the presentations were conducted during the dinner in the old ‘Techniekmuseum’ of Delft.
During the Annual Business meeting, the European Chapter announced the results of the elections for a new Executive Board.