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Paul Bevilaqua, chief engineer of Advanced Development Projects at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, has received Design News magazine's Engineer of the Year award, the publication's highest honor. Bevilaqua, who received the award in late February, invented the shaft-driven lift fan and showed how it could be used to design a family of short takeoff/vertical landing and conventional variants of the same aircraft. The counter-rotating fan, mounted horizontally behind the cockpit of the F-35, works automatically with a vectoring rear engine nozzle to produce unprecedented lifting force during short takeoffs, vertical landings, and hovers. Rolls-Royce, under contract to Pratt & Whitney, is developing the lift fan for all future STOVL F35s.
Photo By Peter Torres
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