Vienna 2024

Jen Uchida, the President of SFTE International

This year the venue for the 35th SFTE EC symposium was Vienna in Austria. This event took place between May 8 and 10, 2024, at the Renaissance Wien Hotel. The programme consisted of a full schedule of keynotes, technical sessions, social events and was concluded with a technical visit on the last day to Diamond Aircraft Industry in Wiener Neustadt.

The evening before the first day the symposium desk was open for early registrations and an informal cocktail reception was organized.

Keynote address on the first day was delivered by Soren Pedersen and Andrei Moise. The audience was informed by the history of Diamond Aircraft and presented a glance for the future. The day continued with three technical sessions delivering ten papers.

International and European Chapter BoDs.

Group picture for the attendees in Vienna.

At the end of the first day the symposium attendees and guests were invited to join the campfire session. The guest of honour and speaker for the campfire session was Sjoerd Postma, former Fokker chief test pilot. He shared valuable lessons from his extensive career which can be summarized to “plan the flight and fly the plan”. This topic was extensive discussed with and between the audience.

The second day consisted of three technical sessions. In total eight technical papers were presented on the second day and concluded with a presentation about SFTE by our SFTE president Jennifer Uchida. Over the two days of technical sessions the audience received in total 18 presentations. The slate of presentations was outstanding. In keeping with the theme of “Current and future FT initiatives linked to sustainable energy sources”, many presentations provided valuable insights into how the fight test world is evolving.

Maj. Julian McCafferty and Capt. Ryan Bumgardner (USAF, via the ESEP program seconded at Royal NLR, delivered a paper on “An assessment of STPA as applied to the Scaled Flight Demonstrator test program NOVAIR” and was awarded the best paper and presentation. The papers and presentations were assessed by a five-panel judge presided by Mr. Jeff Canclini. At the end of day two we concluded with the Annual Business Meeting (ABM). With an active participation from the public, we had some lively discussions about the current and future of FTE’s. Before leaving the symposium our host of the Technical Tour Diamond Aircraft surprised us all by offering a flight for all attending the tour the next day.

Nick Caccavo and Seb Rommel while are leading the technical presentations.

The attendees during the visit at Diamond factory.

The evening was reserved for dinner. A mix of local and international dishes was served throughout the evening. However, the best part was our guest and speaker Mr. Heino Brditschka, designer and pilot of the Militky MB-E1 aircraft. The first electrical powered aircraft to fly on October 23, 1973. His stories were truly inspirational.

For our technical tour on the last day we were welcomed by Diamond Aircraft Industries. A full day programme was prepared offering all the participants a flight in one of the Diamond aircraft. The weather was excellent for flying and all enjoyed the visit. Thank you Diamond for providing an amazing tour.

This event we reached several “first” milestones. It was the first time in Vienna Austria, we reached almost 100 attendees, including guests and partners and four members of SFTE HQ joined our symposium. Representatives from commercial, government, military and research organizations in and outside Europe attended the symposium. We welcomed a large group of women which was the motivation to organize a “Women in Aerospace network” event on the second day.

A big thank you to our sponsors, attendees and presenters which made this symposium into a success and provides an inspiration and motivates for the board to continue our work.

Campfire session with all the participant branded.

Best paper winner.

Page updated

Report abuse