Reach for the sky

It sounds a bit like the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel — an ambitious project to build high in the sky is cursed by a lack of uniform language. However, Arthur Rizzi's EU-funded project does not aim to build a tower, but aircraft simulation software.

The Stockholm-based aeronautical engineer and researchers from across Europe will spend the next two years creating a software program that mimics wind tunnel conditions to test the performance of aircraft control systems. The aim is to speed up the entire design process, saving aerospace companies time and money.

The software will draw on knowledge from the fields of aeronautics, structural engineering and control theory. Rizzi said the challenge will not only be integrating simulation software that was not designed to 'talk to each other,' but also incorporating ideas from engineers who specialise in different disciplines.

'The structures people speak a broken language of aeronautics,' said Rizzi. 'The control people — they have another one.'