Inventing the Joint Strike Fighter

Monday, January 31, 2011 - 6:00 p.m. to Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - 6:55 p.m.
Calit2 Auditorium

Dean's Distinguished Lecturer

Featuring Paul Bevilaqua, Ph.D.

Manager, Advanced Development Programs

Lockheed Martin Corporation, SKUNK WORKS®



Reception to follow in 2430 Colloquia Room, Engineering Hall



Directions: www.eng.uci.edu/visiting/directions

 

Inventing the Joint Strike Fighter

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a single aircraft developed to meet the multirole fighter requirements of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and the country’s allies. The Air Force variant is a supersonic, single engine stealth fighter. The Navy variant has a larger wing and more robust structure in order to operate from an aircraft carrier, while the Marine Corps variant incorporates an innovative propulsion system that can be switched from a turbofan cycle to a turbo shaft cycle for vertical take-off and landing. This novel propulsion system enabled the X-35 demonstrator to become the first aircraft in history to fly at supersonic speeds, hover, and land vertically. This lecture will describe the technical and program challenges involved in growing an innovative idea into an international program with engineers from a half dozen countries developing a replacement for multiple aircraft types.

Paul M. Bevilaqua, Ph.D., is the manager of advanced development programs at Lockheed Martin Corporation, SKUNK WORKS®. He received a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Notre Dame before earning a Ph.D. degree from Purdue University for his contributions to turbulence theory. After graduation, he served as an Air Force officer at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, where he developed hypermixing nozzles and ejectors for an Air Force vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) search and rescue aircraft. Following his military service, he became manager of advanced programs at Rockwell International's Navy aircraft plant in Columbus, Ohio, where he led the design of V/STOL interceptor and transport aircraft. He subsequently joined Lockheed Martin as chief engineer of the SKUNK WORKS®, where he played a leading role in creating the Joint Strike Fighter. He invented the dual cycle propulsion system that made it possible to build a stealthy supersonic V/STOL Strike Fighter, and proposed designs for conventional and Naval variants of this aircraft in order to share development costs between the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. He then led the engineering team that demonstrated the feasibility of building three variants of this aircraft.

He has published in the Journals of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Society of Automotive Engineering (SAE) and the Royal Aeronautical Society and has four patents. He also organized a short course on V/STOL technology, which has been presented at venues in the U.S. and U.K.

Bevilaqua is a Fellow of the AIAA and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. His recognitions include an honorary degree from the Cranfield Institute of Technology in England; Lockheed Martin’s Kelly Johnson Inventors Award (1996); Aerostar Award (2001); NOVA Award (2002); AIAA’s F.E. Newbold V/STOL Award (1996); AiAA’s Aircraft Design Award (2002); SAE’s Aerospace Vehicle Design and Development Award (2002); and American Helicopter Society’s Paul E. Haueter Award (2004). Design News magazine recognized him as Engineer of the Year (2004) and AIAA honored him with a Wright Brothers Lectureship (2009).