Vertical Flight Society Announces William 'Bill' A. Welsh as the 2026 Alexander A. Nikolsky Honorary Lecturer
VFS announces that William (Bill) A. Welsh, Lockheed Martin Senior Technical Fellow (emeritus), selected as 46th Alexander A Nikolsky Honorary Lecturer - 2026.
FAIRFAX, VA, UNITED STATES, December 17, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Vertical Flight Society (VFS) is pleased to announce that William (Bill) A. Welsh, Lockheed Martin Senior Technical Fellow (emeritus) and a leading figure in helicopter dynamics and vibration control, has been selected as the 46th Alexander A. Nikolsky Honorary Lecturer for 2026. Welsh will give his presentation “Helicopter Vibration Technology for Jet Smooth Ride,” at the Society’s 82nd Annual Forum & Technology Display on Tuesday, May 5th,2026, at the Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach Virginia, USA.
Bill’s 44-year career at Sikorsky has transformed the field of rotorcraft vibration control. He played a central role in developing Sikorsky’s production active vibration control system—now used across most of the company’s fleet, and later conceived the innovative Zero-Vibe™ architecture, which enabled the high-speed success of the X2 Technology™, S-97 RAIDER®, and SB>1 DEFIANT® programs. His work has fundamentally elevated the performance and comfort of modern rotorcraft and influenced vibration-control approaches across the global industry.
His expertise has extended beyond Earth, contributing significantly to NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. Bill helped guide the redesign of Dragonfly’s rotor system to address critical vibration challenges, forging a collaboration between the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Sikorsky that proved essential to the mission’s progress.
A gifted mentor and educator, Bill has supported generations of engineers through senior design sponsorship, university engagement, and decades of service within VFS and AIAA. He is a VFS Honorary Fellow, VFS Technical Fellow, Klemin Award recipient, and AIAA Fellow, and holds more than 40 U.S. patents. Bill will deliver the 2026 Nikolsky Lecture at the 82nd Annual Forum & Technology Display in May 2026, with his archival paper to appear in the Journal of the American Helicopter Society.
The Vertical Flight Society congratulates Bill Welsh on this distinguished honor!
The Vertical Flight Society — founded in 1943 as the American Helicopter Society — is the global professional society for engineers, scientists and others working on vertical flight technology. VFS brings together industry, academia and governments to tackle the toughest challenges in vertical flight. For more than 80 years, VFS has led technology, safety, advocacy and other important initiatives, and has been the primary forum for interchange of information on vertical flight technology.
VFS is @VTOLsociety on social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Vimeo and YouTube, and has @ElectricVTOL channels on Facebook.
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