HANS FRANKE
FRED ABBINK
Fred Abbink graduated in Electrical Control Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Technical University Delft in January 1968. After serving as an officer in the Royal Netherlands Navy, he joined NLR in October 1969 as a project engineer / project leader in a number of avionics projects: NLR’s moving base flight simulator, SpaceLab, navaid calibration / flight inspection system for the NL ANSP, airborne computer based flight testing system for the Fokker 50/100 evaluation and certification.
In 1981 he became head of NLR’s flight testing and helicopters department, responsible for NLR’s laboratory aircraft, helicopter research, avionics research, military operations research and accident investigation. In the same year, he was appointed as part-time professor in aircraft instrumentation and avionics at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of the Technical University Delft.
In 1988 he became Technical Director of NLR, responsible for the government funded research programmes and the development of NLR’s large test and evaluation facilities, international cooperation and quality management. From 1996 to1998, he was detached from NLR to become Programme Director Aeronautics at the German Aerospace Center – DLR, in Cologne. There he was responsible for all of DLR’s in-house aeronautics research programmes. In 2005 he became General Director of NLR.
Mr Abbink has been a visiting professor at the Institut Technology Bandung in Indonesia in 1983 and 1989, the National Aerospace Laboratory – NAL (now JAXA) in Japan in 1992, and the Technical University in Helsinki in 1999. From 2006-2008 he was President of the International Council for the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS) and chair or member of a
number of supervisory boards and committees, including DNW, ETW, AIAA, EU-TAG, EREA, ICAS, VKI, ANAE, ACARE.
After his retirement at the end of 2009, he remained very active in the field of Aerospace including a position as President Commissioner at the firm NEDAERO, Chairman of the Netherlands Foundation CompoWorld and chairman of the Netherlands Association for Aeronatical Engineers (NVvL). He is also member of various advisory boards for: the EU CleanSky Scientific and Technology Advisory Group (STAB), the EU SESAR Scientific Board, the board of the Von Karman Institute (VKI) , the Strategic Advisory Council of TNO Integral Safety and Security, the Programme Council of the Netherlands Space Office (NSO), the Royal Netherlands Association for Aviation (KNVvL), the Programme Committee van ICAS, the Board of the Council of European Aerospace Societies (CEAS) and the EU November 2009 3 of 3 Transport Advisory Group (EU TAG). Furthermore he is a member of the Netherlands Academy of Technology and Innovation (AcTI).
Mr Abbink is an Officer in the Order of Oranje Nassau, Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Honorary Fellow of the International Council for the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS, Fellow of the French Académie 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.
WIESŁAW OSTACHOWICZ
On April 11 this year at the Gdańsk University of Technology, at the Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a festive jubilee was celebrated for the 70th birthday of Professor Wiesław Ostachowicz.
Many distinguished guests came to the ceremony – representatives of the entire national scientific community. Congratulations, presents and wishes for the Professor were not the end, each of the guests came to know Professor Ostachowicz well and wanted to personally wish him further personal and professional successes.
On the birthday anniversary of Professor Ostachowicz there were also representatives of PSAA – Prof. Witold Wiśniowski – President of PSAA in the term 2015-2016 and Prof. Zdobysaw Goraj – Coordinator for contacts with foreign countries. The professors joined the wishes for the jubilarian and officially handed the medal to the Polish Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics to Professor Ostachowicz, and also granted the status of an honorary member of the Association.
Professor Ostachowicz is an outstanding specialist in the field of intelligent structures and materials, diagnostics and non-destructive testing, he also contributed greatly to the study of composite structures dynamics, and his achievements regarding the use of a variety of non-destructive testing methods to detect damage have had a huge impact on global science and industry.
Professor Wiesław Ostachowicz can also boast of outstanding scientific, didactic and educational achievements. He included his knowledge and scientific expertise in hundreds of studies and original scientific articles, which are a source of knowledge and inspiration for the scientific world.
