Experts celebrate 100 years of aeronautics at Queen Mary

06 September 2007

Experts in aeronautical engineering will discuss some of the latest developments in their field next week (10-11 September), as they celebrate the centenary of aeronautics teaching in the UK, at Queen Mary, University of London.

Speakers include Dr John Green, chairman of the Greener by Design project, who will discuss the three main impacts of civil aviation on the environment over the next 100 years - noise, air pollution around airports and changes to atmospheric composition and climate.

Professor James De Laurier - inventor of the world’s first engine-powered ornithopter and the first human-carrying ornithopter – discusses his work on these flapping-wing, micro air vehicles, which are modelled on insect and hummingbird flight.

Don Cameron, founder of the world's largest hot air balloon manufacturer and designer of the first hot-air balloon to circumnavigate the globe, will discuss the oldest form of flight.

John Armitt, CBE, Head of the Olympic Delivery Authority, and ex-chief executive of Network Rail, will be a key speaker at the conference dinner.

The two-day conference is being held in memory of Professor AP Thurston, who established the formal teaching of aeronautics in the UK at East London College (now Queen Mary) in 1907, just four years after the first powered flight.

The presentations and discussions will also touch on Flying Machines (Heavier than Air Type); Balloons, Airships and Kites; and the Mechanical Principles of Flight.

As well as the technical aspects of aeronautics, an industrial perspective will be given by speakers including Frank Ogilvie, Airbus A380 Aerodynamics Director and Deputy Head of Overall Aircraft Design. Staff members past and present will also look back on how teaching and research in aeronautics has changed over the last 100 years, and celebrate the life and achievements of Professor AP Thurston.

Chief organiser of the event, Fariborz Motallebi, said: “We are delighted to have such a prominent and distinguished group of speakers at Queen Mary to talk about our significant historical contribution to aeronautics, and its future in the UK.”

Ends

The two-day conference is being held on 10 and 11 September 2007, at the College’s Mile End campus, E1 4NS.

Historical images and diagrams are available on request, as is a full programme and listing of invited speakers.

For further information, please contact:

Siân Halkyard
Acting Head of Communications
Queen Mary, University of London
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7882 7454
email: s.halkyard@qmul.ac.uk

Notes to Editors:

Professor AP Thurston – a brief biography

Peter Thurston was born on 31 October 1881 in Clapton. He studied engineering at East London College, and in 1905 made the acquaintance of Mr PY Alexander, another aeronautical enthusiast of some wealth. In 1907 Thurston was encouraged by JL Hatton, then the East London College Principal to start regular courses of lectures in Aeronautics.

Thurston gradually collected a group of aeronautical enthusiasts around him, and with funds culled from their own pockets as well as substantial support from Mr Alexander, they equipped the aeronautical laboratory which was opened in 1909.

Thurston then started extensive research on such fundamental matters as the characteristics of wing sections and propellers, the forces on struts, and the structural characteristics of typical materials and specimens of aeronautical interest at the time.

In years before the First World War he was an indefatigable and enthusiastic lecturer; in addition to giving his course at the East London College, he lectured at Sheffield University and gave a number of lectures to the Royal Aeronautical Society.

[An extended biography of AP Thurston is available on request].

Queen Mary, University of London

Queen Mary, University of London is one of the UK's leading research-focused higher education institutions with some 15,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Amongst the largest of the colleges of the University of London, Queen Mary’s 3,000 staff deliver world class degree programmes and research across 21 academic departments and institutes, within three sectors: Science and Engineering; Humanities, Social Sciences and Laws; and the School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Queen Mary is ranked 11th in the UK according to the Guardian analysis of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, and has been described as ‘the biggest star among the research-intensive institutions’ by the Times Higher Education.

The College has a strong international reputation, with around 20 per cent of students coming from over 100 countries.

Queen Mary has an annual turnover of £220 million, research income worth £61 million, and generates employment and output worth £600 million to the UK economy each year.

Queen Mary, as a member of the 1994 Group of research-focused universities, has made a strategic commitment to the highest quality of research, but also to the best possible educational, cultural and social experience for its students. The College is unique amongst London's universities in being able to offer a completely integrated residential campus, with a 2,000-bed award-winning Student Village on its Mile End campus.

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