Most sailplane pilots already know of Mark and his accomplishments. For those that do not know of him you should check out his work sometime.

Thanks for bring it up, a truly notable award, congratulations Mark!

Tom

he is a really smart guy who just "get's it"....
From Poland I think(?)

Mark Drela is not from Poland, he is a native of Massachusetts and is a member of my club. I’ve had the good fortune to attend talks on various topics he gave at our club meetings over thelast 20+ years. Bright guy and very friendly.

He has designed many world class competition rc sailplanes, contributed to a rc simulator my club developed, very active in the ESL, in addition to all his professional acedemic work with MIT contributing to full scale aviation and as academic advisor for the MIT team they developed the human powered airplane for the Icarus flight.

Which simulator and what is the ESL?

Originally Posted by jharkin

Mark Drela is not from Poland, he is a native of Massachusetts and is a member of my club. I’ve had the good fortune to attend talks on various topics he gave at our club meetings over thelast 20+ years. Bright guy and very friendly.

He has designed many world class competition rc sailplanes, contributed to a rc simulator my club developed, very active in the ESL, in addition to all his professional acedemic work with MIT contributing to full scale aviation and as academic advisor for the MIT team they developed the human powered airplane for the Icarus flight.

Poland

http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/news/ma...2006drela.html

Drela came to MIT as a freshman in 1982 and went on to receive the SB, SM, and PhD in aeronautics and astronautics. “ I was in aero since I was five years old,” he laughs, recalling building his first model airplane in his native Poland. He attended high school in the Philadelphia suburbs after his family emigrated to the U.S.

That's a great article. Thanks for that.

I'm working on the finishing assembly phase of a version of his Bubble Dancer design using a CLM pod & boom.

Poland has a good reputation in aerospace, with some great full scale glider designs from there. I used to run the SAE Aerodesign payload lifting event, and the best design report I saw in over 10 years of involvement with that competition came from the University of Warsaw.

Originally Posted by Mithrandir

Poland

http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/news/ma...2006drela.html

Drela came to MIT as a freshman in 1982 and went on to receive the SB, SM, and PhD in aeronautics and astronautics. “ I was in aero since I was five years old,” he laughs, recalling building his first model airplane in his native Poland. He attended high school in the Philadelphia suburbs after his family emigrated to the U.S.

Hi,
congrats to Mark. one of the first papers i read from Mark was about the Decavitator.
As i am a modelraceboater this artikel was a big surprice for me . It help me to help a young boy to competite at an solar race boat event at Mayer Warf in Germany , to run his boat with an airplane propeller. much less drag and if select the right dia and pitch a wining boat. https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.ne...OHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
Many thanks to Mark.
I also try a airplane propeller to power my kayak with small outrunner motor and batteries.

Happy Amps Christian