Patrick O. Bowles (M.S., AERO ’11; Ph.D., AERO ’12) of Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company, was named the recipient of the 2020 François-Xavier Bagnoud Award by the Vertical Flight Society (VFS). The award is presented annually to honor a VFS member under the age of 35 for outstanding contributions to vertical flight technology.
“Patrick’s work at Notre Dame — developing a new approach for measuring the aerodynamic damping within the pitching cycle of rotors — set the stage for other graduate students in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.”
— Thomas C. Corke, the Clark Equipment Professor of Engineering and director of the Hypersonic Systems Initiative
Bowles was recognized for his numerous contributions to vertical flight — from his work as a graduate student studying the unsteady aerodynamics of helicopter rotors in Notre Dame’s Institute of Flow Physics and Control to his continued helicopter research at United Technologies Research Center and Sikorsky. Most recently, he served as one of the leads in an extensive computational fluid dynamics effort to solve the exhaust gas reingestion issue for the Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion.
“Patrick’s work at Notre Dame — developing a new approach for measuring the aerodynamic damping within the pitching cycle of rotors — set the stage for other graduate students in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering,” said Thomas C. Corke, the Clark Equipment Professor of Engineering and director of the Hypersonic Systems Initiative. “He continues to serve the field well.”
Bowles will be acknowledged at an awards banquet during the VFS 76th Annual Forum and Technology Display in October 2020.
VFS is a global non-profit society for engineers, scientists and others working on vertical flight technology.
— Nina Welding, College of Engineering