Meet The Team | Editorial Committee Chair: Prof. Dhwanil Shukla

In the second post in the 'MEET THE TEAM' series, we would like to introduce our editorial committee chair, Prof. Dhwanil Shukla.

Dr. Dhwanil Shukla is an assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at IIT Bombay. He did his Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a two-time recipient of Vertical Flight Foundation scholarship and an awardee of the president’s gold medal at IIT Gandhinagar. His primary research areas are rotorcraft and low-speed experimental aerodynamics. Dr. Dhwanil is associated with the Lighter Than Air (LTA) lab at IIT Bombay since 2020, serving as a Co-PI on an aerostat based wide range surveillance system project. In the past, he has worked on various concept development projects involving LTA systems such as cycloidal rotor hybrid airships for urban aerial commuting and high-altitude solar reflectors for countering global warming.

Meet The Team | Our Patron: Prof. Rajkumar S. Pant

We would like to introduce the organizing team of DELTAs-2022 via a series of posts, we are calling 'MEET THE TEAM'. Let us begin by introducing our patron, guide and support, Prof. Rajkumar S. Pant.

Prof. Rajkumar S. Pant has Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Engineering. His areas of specialization include Aircraft Conceptual Design, Air Transportation, and Optimization. He has been a member of faculty of Aerospace Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay since December 1989.

Prof. Pant is an alumnus of College of Aeronautics, Cranfield University, UK, where he earned his Ph.D. under Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme, and IIT Madras, where he did his Masters in Aeronautical Engineering. He has also worked for five years in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in the Design & Engineering Department at Kanpur (3.5 years) and Nasik (1.5 years) Divisions.

In 2002, he set up a Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) systems laboratory at IIT Bombay, which has undertaken several R&D and Consultancy projects related to design, development and demonstration of LTA systems. Since 2007, he has been an international member of AIAA’s Lighter-Than-Air Technical Committee, and was the Chairperson for 2014-16. He has published and presented > 265 scientific papers, of which > 190 are in international journals and conferences. He has also visited several top-ranking institutes and universities all over the world.

Prof. Pant was a visiting faculty at Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in 2016, and Department of Aerospace & Ocean Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2010-11. He was a visiting researcher at Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Brazil in 2012, Texas A&M University in 2011, Cambridge University in 2008, and Imperial College London in 2006. In 2102, he was appointed as a Special Visiting Researcher under the Science Without Borders program of the Brazilian Government for a three-year project related to design and development of Hybrid Lighter-Than-Air systems.

Prof. Pant was honored with the D P Joshi Excellent Teacher Award in 2014, in recognition of his merit, achievements and enthusiasm for teaching and making a lasting impression on students. In 2019, he was felicitated by Institution of Engineers (India) as an Eminent Engineering personality in Aerospace Engineering. Recently, he received Special Recognition in Academic Excellence (Faculty-National category) award by Institution of Engineers (India), as part of 4th Biennial International Conference on Nascent Technologies in Engineering held in January 2021. He is a life-member and Fellow of the Aeronautical Society of India.

Huge shoutout to the contributors!

We have received a staggering response for our Call For Papers spanning more than 10 countries and we would like to thank everyone who was a part of this process. A huge shoutout to the entire LTA community all around the world for supporting us in this endeavor. Stay tuned for further updates on the conference.

Towards a greener future

The current dire situation has made us humans realize, how beautiful the nature can be if automobiles expelling pollutants are brought to a standstill. It reinvigorated the urge to develop sustainable transportation modes. Out of the many modes being explored lately, the lighter-than-air (LTA) technology based aerial transportation medium including blimps, airships, or hybrid airships could be a new cornerstone towards achieving the long-standing dream of an eco-friendly aviation future. In order to create more awareness about this technology, our team at IIT Bombay is organizing a first-ever event (within the Indian subcontinent) on LTA systems at IIT Bombay called the "Design and Engineering of LTA systems 2022 (DELTAs-2022). For Details, visit www.deltas2022.in. This will be a unique tech-savvy extravaganza that will surely usher in new paradigms for technological advancements in LTA systems, helping humans to develop sustainable modes of cargo transport. So join us for this event and be a part of the future.

Springer: Huge Announcement!

The DELTAs-2022 team wishes to make a big announcement regarding the conference. Now, all full papers submitted to the conference meeting the publishing criteria and quality standards will be published by Springer as a proceedings of DELTAs - 2022.

The impact of pop culture on the mass appeal of airships

What do you think is the biggest deterrent towards commercial airship travel? You might be guessing a technical aspect like efficiency, time taken, among others, but one of the biggest reasons is public paranoia due to the Hindenburg crash. But why does an accident that took place in 1937 still affect people so much?

One of the key contributors to this is the fact that the incident is quite widely referenced in pop culture all over the world. There have been many films, songs, and TV shows allusions to the historic tragedy in the last decade itself! Notable mentions over time can be found in popular shows like The Simpsons, Sopranos, Family Guy, Seinfeld, and so on. Even in the anime world there are a lot of plots where blimps lead to a crash, notably in the popular show Pokémon and the Ghibli classic Kiki's Delivery Service. Repeated exposure to a traumatic incident reinforces the negativity bias among the masses, leading to a widespread paranoia situation.

In short, if a blimp exists in a show or movie, and there are people travelling on it, then there is sure to be a crash. Such is not the case with any other means of transport. For every plane crash movie, there are three others which show a perfectly safe plane travel in a nonchalant fashion. Some famous scenes like the finale of the popular 90s sitcom Friends shows a plane safety scare as a comedic element. Such instances are helpful in alleviating mass tension and trusting the technology. Let us eagerly await a time where pop culture shows mercy on airships and establishes a secure mass appeal towards them.

Luxury Airship Cruises

If you thought that the days of commercial airship travel are over, this Swedish company is going to change your entire perspective. OceanSky Cruises AB, a Swedish aviation company, has plans to develop a luxury aircraft powered by Helium with a capacity of 16 passengers and 7 crew members. The route is Norway to Arctic and back, but further plans can also include a four-hour-hop from Seattle to Vancouver among other routes.

Photo by: HYBRID AIR VEHICLES LTD/DESIGN Q; The Wall Street Journal

There is a widespread public fear with respect to commercial airship travel after the historically tragic 1937 crash of the Hindenburg airship near Lakehurst, N.J., but OceanSky is determined to change the mass hysteria by including a plethora of extra safety features like seatbelts and handrails. They are unneeded as the ship sails smoothly through the skies, but are included to instill a sense of safety in the passengers. Other luxury amenities include a restaurant and a bar, which makes the journey in the 320-feet-long airship quite lucrative. We look forward to see to a future where this becomes a reality!

CALL FOR PAPERS UPDATE!

The deadline for submitting your extended abstracts has been extended to 15th January 2022. Please note that this is a hard deadline and won't be extended any further.

Wishing New Year 2022!