RAeS / EA International Eminent Speaker Program - Fred Abbink

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In 1919 Royal Dutch Airlines – KLM, Fokker Aircraft Industry and The National Aerospace Laboratory – NLR, were founded. In the following 90 years, many political and technological developments have shaped KLM, Fokker and NLR into today’s form and structure. These developments have included the consolidation of the multiple national aircraft industries, through National Champions and Joint Ventures between National Champions into European aerospace industries; the consolidation of the multiple national airlines, through national flag carriers, airline alliances and mergers into global airlines; the consolidation of Europe and the development of European organisations and agencies; and the development of European and international cooperation in aeronautical research.

Fred will address the NLR RDT&E support of the Dutch Military Forces in the field of threat analysis, self protection, training and maintenance, as well as helicopter-ship qualification; Fokker in the field of aerodynamic design, structural testing and flight testing of the Fokker F.27, F.28, Fokker 50 and Fokker 100, and the support in composites design and qualification in the period after the Fokker bankruptcy in 1996; and the Schiphol Airport and ATC The Netherlands in order to increase the airport capacity, within the (legal) boundaries of safety, noise and emissions. Furthermore it will address how NLR increases its RDT&E effectiveness and efficiency by increased participation in the EU Framework Programmes, AGARD/RTO, GARTEUR, ACARE and the Association of European Research Establishments in Aeronautics, and in the field of wind tunnels, by jointly building, operating and exploiting large wind tunnels.

His experience of the Netherlands situation will provide valuable lessons for the Australian Aerospace industry to mirror in the development and implementation of new technology to support the industry, both civil & military in changing environments.

Fred Abbink is the General Director of the National Aerospace Laboratory of The Netherlands (NLR). He graduated in Electrical Control Engineering from the Technical University Delft in 1968 afterwhich he served in the Royal Netherlands Navy as a project engineer on a number of avionics projects. He became head of NLR’s flight testing & helicopters department in 1981 responsible for helicopter, avionics & military operations research and accident investigation. He became the Technical Director in 1988 and General Director in 2005 with a brief absence due to an appointment at the German Aerospace Centre.

Mr Abbink has served as part-time & visiting professor at many prestigious Universities across the world. He was the President of the International Council for the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS) between 2006 & 2008 and currently continues a number of Officer Bearer roles on other National & International Aerospace bodies. Mr Abbink is an Officer in the Order of Oranje Nassau, Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Member of the French Académie Nationale de l’Air et de l’Espace (ANAE), Member of the Netherlands Academy of Technology and Innovation, and Honorary Member of the TU-Delft Aerospace Students Association Leonardo Da Vinci.