The bright spot for the rotorcraft industry amid pandemic disruptions may be how well the vertical flight community collaborates from afar. For the second time, the Vertical Flight Society's Annual Forum went online with a record 1,465 global registrants to view 226 technical paper presentations and listen in on more than 50 invited speakers. Forum 77, held May 10-14, recognized achievements and challenges in military Future Vertical Lift (FVL) and commercial advanced air mobility (AAM) developments, and provided updates on Europe's Clean Sky 2 initiative and the NATO Next-Generation Rotorcraft. Like last year's gathering, Forum 77 also offered a virtual exhibit hall to showcase new ways to design and manufacture aircraft. On the annual CEO panel, "Straight Talk from the Top," Bell Vice President of Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Innovation Glenn Isbell observed, "The way that we designed the V-22 is very different from the way we designed the V-280. Imagining and designing aircraft conceptually is one thing. To be able to make them and demonstrate capability is really something else. We need a culture to make that happen."
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