Dr. Leishman and Johnson receive Lindenbaum Award in Montreal

• Gordon Leishman
• Bradley Johnson
• Paul Cornu
• tandem rotor machine
• AHS

Minta Martin Professor J. Gordon Leishman and First Year Aerospace Graduate Student Bradley Johnson receive the Lindenbaum Award.

Congratulations to Aerospace Engineering's Minta Martin Professor Dr. J. Gordon Leishman and First Year Aerospace Graduate Student Bradley Johnson were recently awarded the Lindenbaum Award for the best paper in the History Session at the Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society (AHS), which was held in Montreal, Canada this past April. Their paper, which was presented at the forum by Professor Leishman, was entitled "Engineering Analysis of the 1907 Cornu Helicopter" and focused on the design of the historic Paul Cornu tandem rotor machine. In addition, the paper provided a proper engineering analysis of its capabilities, based on simple rotor theory. Although Cornu has been historically recognized by some as the first to achieve a successful helicopter flight, a simple analysis of his machine proved that his claims of a successful piloted flight were questionable at best, as the helicopter simply did not possess the needed power to achieve hover off the ground. The paper was recieved very well by several helicopter historians.

Published May 9, 2008