Dr. Karl Dawson “K.D.” Wood graduated from Cornell University with an aerospace engineering Master’s degree in 1922 before receiving his doctorate from the University of Michigan, where he wrote his dissertation on helicopter design. Dr. K. D. Wood formed the aeronautical engineering departments at two major universities, Purdue and the University of Colorado at Boulder – where he was officially head of the department. He also taught at Cornell University as one of the earliest professors of the developing science of aerodynamics. His internationally recognized publications and groundbreaking texts include: Technical Aerodynamics; the two-volume Aerospace Vehicle Design; twelve editions of Aircraft Design with key delineation of “Airplane Design”; and finally Spacecraft Design. He was actively consulted on missile design and supersonic transports. He was one of the first engineers to predict the key role that helicopters play in today’s mass transportation. Today, he would recognize that the future of the helicopter is limited and that the advent of ducted-lift-fan technology used in Frontline’s V-STAR™ is the future of vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft.
