John Underwood

John has worked in the parachute industry for 20 years. He began his career at Martin-Baker Aircraft Company and joined Vorticity in 2003.

He has extensive experience with all aspects of parachute system design including system definition and trades, computer modelling and testing – both in wind tunnels and free-flight. He carried out all the pre and post-flight analysis of the parachute system for the highly successful ESA Huygens probe and has designed parachute systems for missions to Venus, Earth, Mars and Titan.

John is a Senior Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and has published more than ten aerodynamic decelerator-related papers.

He has tutored  parachute aerodynamics on the AIAA H G Heinrich Parachute Technology Short Course.

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