Our Approach
Helden Aerospace's focus is on leveraging our considerable expertise in aerodynamics to help our customers with a wide range of needs in a timely fashion. We strive to help our customers meet their deadlines by providing rapid CFD meshing, solving, and post processing turnaround in addition to timely consulting on design, testing, and planning topics. Additionally, we provide licensing for HeldenMesh, which we use and develop for our consulting services, in addition to very aggressive customer support.
Our Story
Helden Aerospace's Founders were aerodynamics subject matter experts supporting a wide range of government programs and observed that all of our strengths were very complementary. We enjoyed aerodynamics and CFD so much that we wanted to extend our workload and support commercial programs in our spare time. HeldenMesh Suite was developed as an internal-use suite of tools that enabled our rapid turnaround and large workload. The rest is history.
Meet the Leadership Team
Rick Hooker
Founder, Programmatic Lead
[email protected]
Rick has over 26 years of experience in the development and application of CFD-based methods for the analysis and design of both military and commercial aircraft. He also has extensive experience in both wind tunnel and flight testing to validate predicted performance. A primary focus of his career has been assessing, developing, and integrating emerging technologies and improving CFD analysis and design tools. He has been technical lead over many government and private programs and each of them has provided its deliverables on time and under-to-on budget.
Andrew Wick
Founder, Aerodynamics Lead
[email protected]
Andrew is the chief developer of Helden Aerospace’s HeldenMesh suite of software tools, which have been used throughout industry and government for rapid unstructured CFD mesh generation. His research has contributed to significant reductions in the time it takes to perform CFD analysis, enabling better designs and new technologies to be developed. He is also one of the nation’s experts in unstructured mesh generation, applied aerodynamic analysis, CFD-based aerodynamic optimization, and propulsion airframe integration.
Our Approach
Aerodynamics & CFD Relevant Publications
- "Hybrid Wing Body Performance Validation at the National Transonic Facility," (AIAA 2017-0099)
- "Powered Low Speed Testing of the Hybrid Wing Body," (AIAA 2017-0100)
- "Transonic Semispan Aerodynamic Testing of the Hybrid Wing Body," (AIAA 2015-0098)
- "Integrated Aerodynamic Benefits of Distributed Propulsion," (AIAA 2015-1500)
- "Design of a Hybrid Wing Body for Fuel Efficient Air Mobility Operations," (AIAA-2014-1285)
- “Over Wing Nacelle Installations for Improved Energy Efficiency,” (AIAA 2013-2920)
- "Design and Transonic Wind Tunnel Testing of a Cruise Efficient STOL Transport," (AIAA 2013-1100)
- “Low Speed Powered Lift Testing of a Transonic Cruise Efficient STOL Military Transport,” (AIAA 2013-1099)
- “Powered Lift CFD Predictions of a Transonic Cruising STOL Military Transport,” (AIAA 2013-1098)
- “Reduction of Aft Fuselage Drag on the C-130 Using Microvanes,” (AIAA 2013-0105)
- “Using Knowledge-based Optimization with TetrUSS,” Presented at USM3D Users Group Meeting, October 2008.
- "Numerical Simulation of the Splashdown Problem," (AIAA 2007-0373)
- "Numerical Study of Axi-Symmetric Bodies Falling Into Water," (AIAA 2007-0342)
- “Application of the Unstructured Chimera Method for Rapid Weapons Trajectory Simulations,” (AIAA 2007-75)
- "Computational Simulation of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Impacting Water," (AIAA 2007-70)
- “The Application of CFD for the Aerodynamic Development of the C-5M Galaxy,” (AIAA 2006-0856)
- "Characterization of Wing Icing by its Fractal Dimension," (AIAA Region V Student Conference 2005)
- "Algorithm Development of a 'Galactic Positioning System,'" (AIAA Region V Student Conference 2005)
- “Aerodynamic Development of a Refueling Pod for Tanker Aircraft,” (AIAA 2002-2805)
- “Validation of Unstructured Grid Euler/Navier-Stokes Code on Full Aircraft with Propellers,” (AIAA 2001-1003)
- “Advanced Pylon Design using Computational Fluid Dynamics,” (Memorandum C1-1XG-FP-95-241)
- "Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Procedures for the Unsteady Aerodynamic Analysis of Airfoils using Unstructured Meshes," (AIAA 92-2694)
Next Steps...
Please contact us and let us know how we can help you with your CFD needs.