The Royal Aeronautical Society has been honouring outstanding achievers in the global aerospace industry since 1909 when Wilbur and Orville Wright came to London to receive the Society’s first Gold Medal. In the years that have followed, honouring world aerospace achievers has become a permanent tradition of the Society. Included among these awards are the written paper prizes.

The Royal Aeronautical Society Written Paper Prizes are awarded annually for the best papers published in The Aeronautical Journal by the Society during the previous calendar year. Awards can be conferred at Gold, Silver or Bronze level. A new prize for the best paper to appear in The Journal of Aeronautical History has recently been added. The Written Paper Prizes are presented following the approval of the Council of the Royal Aeronautical Society on the basis of recommendations from the RAeS Medals & Awards Committee, supported by the Editor-in-Chief of The Aeronautical Journal. The Society recognises the achievements, innovation and excellence of both individual and multiple authors.

The nominations received for the 2020 Awards were highly competitive and, on behalf of the RAeS Council, the Medals and Awards Committee is very pleased to announce the winners as:

The 2020 Silver Written Paper Prize

Awarded to G.S. Aglietti et al.

RemoveDEBRIS: An in-orbit demonstration of technologies for the removal of space debris.

The Aeronautical Journal, Volume 124, Issue 1271, January 2020, pp 1–23

Awarded to: A. Scaperdas and D. Howson

CAA research programme – Helicopter Operations to Moving Offshore Helidecks

Part A: Modelling the on-deck helicopter Reserve Of Stability (ROS)

Part B: Probabilistic model for calculating MSI/WSI limits for offshore helicopter operations

The Aeronautical Journal, Volume 124, Issue 1280, October 2020, pp 1463–1522

The 2020 Bronze Written Paper Prize

Awarded to: S. Unterstrasser and A. Stephan

Far field wake vortex evolution of two aircraft formation flight and implications on young contrails.

The Aeronautical Journal, Volume 124, Issue 1275, May 2020, pp 667–702

Awarded to: O. Knuuttila A. Kestilä and E. Kallio

Synthetic photometric landmarks used for absolute navigation near an asteroid

The Aeronautical Journal, Volume 124, Issue 1279, September 2020, pp 1281–1300

Awarded to: E. Levis, F. Pleho and J. Hedges

Viability of joined flight for small unmanned aerial vehicles

The Aeronautical Journal, Volume 124, Issue 1273, March 2020, pp 297–322

Awarded to: John, J. Bower, S. Shahpar, A. Smith and N. Qin

Using shock control bumps to improve engine intake performance and operability

The Aeronautical Journal, Volume 124, Issue 1282, December 2020, pp 1913–1944

The 2020 Young Persons’ Written Paper Prize

Awarded to: John, J. (lead author)

Using shock control bumps to improve engine intake performance and operability

The Aeronautical Journal, Volume 124, Issue 1282, December 2020, pp 1913–1944

The Journal of Aeronautical History Written Paper Prize

Awarded to: Dr R.V. Smith and J.P. Graham

Westland and the Attack Helicopter – from Lynx to Apache

paper-2020-05-westland-and-the-attack-helicopters-from-lynx-to-apache.pdf (aerosociety.com)