SAMPE 2023 Conference and Expo reveals opening keynote

The Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE, Diamond Bar, Calif., U.S.) announces that John S. Langford, founder and CEO of Electra.aero (Manassas, Va., U.S.), will deliver the opening keynote speech at the upcoming SAMPE Conference and Expo, taking place on April 17-20, 2023 at the all-new Seattle Convention Center | Summit.

Langford’s talk, titled “Hybrid-Electric Airplanes with Human, Gas Turbine and Fusion Power,” will begin with how a human-powered airplane called Monarch, became the winner of the Kremer World Speed Prize in 1984. Nearly 40 years later, key members of the Monarch team are developing the Electra electric short takeoff and landing (eSTOL), using better batteries and a small gas turbine to carry nine passengers in and out of spaces the size of a football field. Learn how these impressive advances are making a strong argument for electric propulsion in aircraft.

John Langford is an aerospace entrepreneur who has spent his career developing a wide range of aircraft, some of them robotic and many of them electrically powered. After leading the MIT Daedalus Project in the 1980s, he founded Aurora Flight Sciences (Manassas) and led the company for 30 years before selling it to Boeing. In 2020, he launched a new company, Electra.aero, specifically to pursue green aviation technologies and products.

To learn more about John Langford and to register for this event, please go here.