Contact Professor Howard Smith

Areas of expertise

  • Aircraft Design

Background

Professor Howard Smith has particular interests in advanced aircraft configuration design, the design of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and aircraft static loads analysis. He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Senior Member of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He was recently awarded a Boeing Welliver Faculty Fellowship, a position previously given to only one non-US citizen since 1995.

Current activities

Howard is head of the Aircraft Design Group at Cranfield University. His multidisciplinary team excels at the integration of technologies, such as structures, airframe systems and avionics, to find solutions to aviation related challenges such as the environment, defence and airline operations. He has been responsible for the creation of a wide range of innovative aircraft concept studies.

Howard currently teaches aircraft conceptual design and aircraft loads analysis to graduate students from all over the world. The unique approach to teaching emphasises learning and assessment through immersion in virtual industrial team projects. The scale of the projects initiated is probably unique in the academic world and attracts interest from aerospace manufacturers and operators alike.

Publications

Articles In Journals

Conference Papers

Books