• Mr. Harold Youngren
  • Aerocraft
  • Holden Auditorium
  • 4:00 p.m.
  • Faculty Host: Dr. Pradeep Raj

The 34th America’s Cup was recently held in September 2013 in San Francisco in a new class of high-speed, hydrofoiling, wing-masted AC72 catamarans, capable of speeds up to 50 knots.   The Cup was finally won by Oracle Team USA in a hotly contested, exciting race series against the very strong Emirates Team New Zealand challenger. 

Mr. Harold Youngren was a member of the design team for Emirates Team New Zealand for the 2013 Cup campaign.  He and his associate, Mr. Len Imas, were involved in many aspects of the aerodynamic and hydrodynamic design of the New Zealand AC72 catamaran.  Mr. Youngren will review the design and development of the NZL-5 catamaran and discuss the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic challenges faced in creating and racing these novel and extreme racing yachts. 

Biography:

Mr. Harold Youngren is a design consultant who has worked for a number of US aerospace companies over the last 30 years. His experience covers a wide range of aerospace design applications, principally on unmanned aircraft.  His areas of interest include aircraft and rotorcraft design, propeller and ducted fan propulsion, stability and control, flight vehicle simulation, aeroelasticity and flutter.  He has developed aerodynamic methods that are widely used in aircraft design, and has extensive experience with application of modern Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods for aerospace design. 

In the 1980’s Mr. Youngren worked at Lockheed-California Company and the Skunk Works in aerodynamics and methods development.   In 1987-1988 he left Lockheed to be the chief engineer for the MIT Daedalus human-powered aircraft.  He was the chief aerodynamicist for the Frontier Systems/ Loral/ Boeing Tier 2+ DARPA program and worked with Frontier Systems on the design and flight testing of the A160 Hummingbird helicopter.  More recent work includes tilt-rotor design with Karem Aircraft for the Army Joint Heavy Lift program and aerodynamic/hydrodynamic design for Emirates Team New Zealand on their America’s Cup boats (2011-2013).

Mr. Youngren earned both B.S. and M.S. degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.