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CATEGORIES:Conferences/Seminars/Lectures
DESCRIPTION:Date: Thursday\, December 7\, 2023\nTime: 5 p.m. ET \nHybrid ev
 ent: Room 33-206 & on Zoom\n\nThe Aerospace Innovation Seminar Series will 
 feature speakers from some of the biggest names in entrepreneurial aerospac
 e — many of whom started as students in AeroAstro!\n\nThe Talk\n\nThe April
  23\, 1988 flight of the MIT human-powered aircraft Daedalus set performanc
 e records that still stand today.  But before Daedalus there was Monarch\, 
 winner of the Kremer World Speed Prize in 1984.  Monarch was in fact a hybr
 id-electric plane\, coupling human energy with batteries to achieve a top s
 peed of 23 miles per hour (Mach .03).  Almost 40 years later\, key members 
 of the Monarch team are developing the Electra eSTOL\, a hybrid-electric\, 
 blown lift aircraft design.  Electra recently made the first flight series 
 on its manned technology demonstrator (the EL-2 Goldfinch) and is working o
 n a 9 passenger design to operate out of spaces the size of a football fiel
 d.  \n\nThe 40-year journey between Monarch and Goldfinch is a story of aer
 ospace entrepreneurship.  It starts at a time when aerospace startups were 
 almost unheard of and the Institute’s focus was almost exclusively on acade
 mic excellence.  The Daedalus Project (1985-88)\, Aurora Flight Sciences (1
 989-2019)\, Athena Technologies (1998-2008)\, and Electra.aero (2020-presen
 t) feature prominently in the story.  In this talk John Langford will revie
 w some of his experiences and how they tie directly to Course XVI and Cours
 e XVII\, what some of his lessons learned have been\, and provide some thou
 ghts for future aerospace innovators.\n\n \n\nThe Speaker\n\nJohn Langford 
  (MIT ’79\, ’83\, ’84\, ’87) is an aerospace entrepreneur who has spent his
  career developing a wide range of aircraft\, many of them robotic and many
  of them electrically-powered.  After leading the MIT Daedalus Project in t
 he 1980s\, he founded Aurora Flight Sciences and led the company for 30 yea
 rs before selling it to Boeing.  In 2020 he launched a new company\, Electr
 a.aero\, specifically to pursue green aviation technologies and products.\n
 \n \n\nThis seminar series is part of the Certificate in Aerospace Innovati
 on offered by the MIT Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics in collabora
 tion with the Martin Trust MIT Center for Entrepreneurship. Learn more abou
 t the certificate program on our Certificate in Aerospace Innovation websit
 e!\n\n \n\nContact Email: aa-innovation@mit.edu
DTEND:20231207T230000Z
DTSTAMP:20260310T223758Z
DTSTART:20231207T220000Z
GEO:42.36018;-71.094405
LOCATION:Building 33\, 206
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY:Aerospace Innovation Seminar featuring John Langford  (MIT ’79\, ’8
 3\, ’84\, ’87)
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_44932726402497
URL:https://calendar.mit.edu/event/aerospace_innovation_seminar_featuring_p
 reston_dunlap_4123
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