The Vertical Flight Society's Annual Forum & Technology Display is the world's leading international technical event on vertical flight technology. This year, the four-day in-person meeting included more than 260 technical papers on every discipline from Acoustics to Test and Evaluation. Forum Proceedings papers can be purchased as individual pdf files from the Vertical Flight Online Library.
Every year, the best paper in each technical discipline is selected by the Society's Technical Committees. All of the best papers from each technical discipline from every Annual Forum since 2004 – including the overall Alfred Gessow Best Paper Award – are recognized as some of the most important technical contributions in the field of vertical flight.
The Forum 81 winning technical papers are linked below.
| Technical Area | Title of Paper | Author(s) |
| Safety: Winner of the Alfred Gessow Forum Best Paper Award | EASA Helicopter Vortex-Ring-State Experimental Research Project | Laurent Binet, ONERA; Philippe Gasquez, DGA-EV; Raffaele Di Caprio, EASA |
| Acoustics | Phased Array Measurements of a Full-Scale Helicopter | Kyle Pascioni, Colin Stutz, Mary Houston, NASA Langley Researach Center; James Stephenson, US Army CCDC AvMC |
| Advanced Vertical Flight | Neural Network Assisted Flight Dynamics Modeling of a Tailsitter UAS with Experimental Validation | Reuben-Wayne Stewart, Jack Dooher, Moble Benedict, Texas A&M University |
| Aerodynamics | NASA Dragonfly Mission & Coaxial Rotor Test & CFD Prediction | Sven Schmitz, Jose Palacios, Gracelyne Allred, Pennsylvania State University; Jason Cornelius,, NASA Ames Research Center; Richard Heisler, Bernadine Juliano, Gino Perrotta, Felipe Ruiz, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory |
|
Aircraft Design (best overall in Vehicle Design disciplines) |
A High-Performance Tailsitter Design for Future Air-Launch Capability |
Jack Dooher, Moble Benedict, David Coleman, Texas A&M University |
| Autonomy and UAS | Autonomous Ship Deck Landing Strategies for Unmanned Rotorcraft Operating in Harsh Weather Conditions | Mark Voskuijl, Richard Bakker, Michel van Rooij, Netherlands Defense Academy; Damy Zilver, Royal Netherlands Navy, Royal Navy |
| Avionics and Mission Systems (best overall in Systems Integration disciplines) | Close Enough for Comfort — Analysis of Landing Zone Evaluations with Autonomous No-Hover Landing in Unprepared Locations | Derek Gowanlock, Arthur Gubbels, Kris Ellis, Bryan Carrothers, Anton Moshchensky, Mustafa Syed, National Research Council of Canada |
| Crash Safety | Effect of High-Rate Loading on Anthropomorphic Test Device Pelvises | Ian Hellstrom, David Moorcroft, William Carroll, Federal Aviation Administratin |
| Crew Stations and Human Factors | Urban Air Mobility Passenger Discomfort Evaluations of Sudden Heave Motion in a Virtual Reality Motion-Base Simulator | Curt Hanson, Saravanakumaar Ramia, Kyle Barnes, NASA Armstrong Research Center |
| Dynamics | Flap-Lag Stability Analysis of RACER in High-Speed Flight Conditions | Yan Skaldanek, Remi Coisnon, David Ferullo, Airbus Helicopters |
| Electric VTOL | Impact of Detailed SFC on Hybrid-Electric VTOL Sizing | Matt Arace, Anubhav Datta, University of Maryland |
| Handling Qualities (best overall in Aeromechanic disciplines) | Flight Test Assessment of Scalable Low-Level Mission Task Elements | Tim Jusko, Christian Walko, German Aerospace Center - DLR; Tom Berger, US Army CCDC AvMC |
| Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) | Feature Selection and Gamma Test for Improved Load Estimation Models | Catherine Cheung, Nikita Fenev, Julio Valdés, National Research Council Canada |
| History | A Humble Public Servant: Hal Andrews (1924–2007) | Michael J. Hirschberg, as the winner of the Bernard Lindenbaum Best Historical Paper |
| Manufacturing Tech. and Processing (best overall in Vehicle Integrity disciplines) | Jim Lua, Kalyan Shrestha, Rui Li, Anand Karuppiah, Global Engineering and Materials Inc.; Mark Timko, Weber Metals; Scot Lund, Spirit AeroSystems | |
| Modeling and Simulation | Subscale Tiltrotor eVTOL Aircraft Dynamic Modeling and Flight Control Software Development | Benjamin Simmons, Kasey Ackerman, Garrett Asper, Matthew Gray, Steven Snyder, Rachel Axten, Steven Geuther, Ryan Chan, NASA Langley Research Center |
| Operations and Infrastructures(best overall in Operations and Product Support disciplines) | Wildlife Strike Mitigation in AAM: Key Technology Gaps and Proposed Solutions | Margarete Groll, Phillip Stepanian, MIT Lincoln Laboratory; Isabel Metz, German Aerospace Center (DLR) |
| Propulsion | Multifidelity Electric Motor Optimization Considering Mission and Transient Thermal Constraints | Seiyon Arulampalam, Cameron Smith, Graeme Kennedy, Brian German, Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Structures and Materials | Fatigue Damage Modeling in Laminated Composite Structures Based on J-Integral Calculation | Yuri Nikishkov, Guillaume Seon, Gennadiy Nikishkov, Brian Shonkwiler, University of Texas at Arlington; Andrew Makeev, Peter Matthews, Robert Haynes, US Army DEVCOM AvMC |
| Systems Engineering Tools and Processes | Transforming Modeling and Simulation Verification, Validation & Accreditation with a Model-Based and Standards-Based Framework | James Hill, Dustin Hays, Carson McDonald, Lockheed Martin |
| Test and Evaluation | Dragonfly Preparation for Powered Flight Wind Tunnel and CFD Modeling | Peter Lorber, Brian Wallace, Kalki Sharma, Patrick Bowles, Karl Edquist, Sikorsky A Lockheed Martin Company |