Dowty Propellers is proud to support Cranfield University’s National Flying Laboratory Centre (NFLC). Helping to create aerospace leaders of the future, the classroom-in-the-sky offers students and researchers the opportunity to experience the role of a flight test engineer as they are taken through lift, drag and pressure tests accompanied by real-time data. A new aircraft – a Saab 340B equipped with Dowty propellers – allows Cranfield to continue teaching and research and its planned aircraft modifications will offer new and innovative research capabilities.
The aircraft is a UK national asset and is used not only by Cranfield staff and students but hosts students from UK and Irish universities as part of their undergraduate aeronautical engineering courses. Each year around 1,600 students from 25 universities experience the NFLC. Several Dowty engineers have been beneficiaries of the National Flying Laboratory Centre.