Paul Bevilaqua
| Paul Michael Bevilaqua | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 11, 1945 United States |
| Occupation | Aeronautics engineer |
Paul Bevilaqua is an aeronautics engineer at Lockheed Martin in California. In 1990, he invented the lift fan for the Joint Strike Fighter F-35B along with fellow Skunk Works engineer Paul Shumpert.
Paul Bevilaqua earned a Doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics (subject: Turbulent wakes) at Purdue University in 1973. This seems to be concurrent with activities as an Air Force Lieutenant at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WP-AFB), where he began professional work in 1971. At some point he became Deputy Director of the Energy Conversion Lab at WP-AFB, managed by jet inventor Hans von Ohain. In 1975 Paul left the Air Force to be a Manager of Advanced Programs at Rockwell International's Navy Aircraft Plant. Ten years later, in 1985, he was appointed Chief Aeronautical Scientist at Lockheed, trying to come up with a new line of business.
Hans von Ohain inspired Bevilaqua to think like an engineer rather than a mathematician - "in school I learned how to move the pieces, and Hans taught me how to play chess", although he said that about Purdue as well. Ohain also showed Paul "what those TS-diagrams actually mean".
While at WP, Ohain, Bevilaqua and others investigated (see #List of Papers) and patented various flow related concepts, some of them flow multipliers related to vertical take-off and landing.
In the 1980s, the United States Marine Corps wanted a Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing (V/STOVL) aircraft with more speed and payload than the Harrier/AV-8B.
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