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It is both a great honour and a challenging mission for me to succeed Professor Rolf Henke as Editor-in-Chief of the excellent CEAS Aeronautical Journal. The journal was founded a decade ago by joint efforts of the Council of European Aerospace Societies (CEAS), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the European Space Agency (ESA) and Springer, parallel to its space counterpart, the CEAS Space Journal.

With the first issue of the CEAS Aeronautical Journal in 2011, Rolf Henke took on the role of Editor-in-Chief to drive the journal forward from the very beginning. Both in his role as an Executive Board Member of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and as an active and recognised part of the international aeronautical community, he managed to significantly raise the profile and impact of the journal in the aeronautical community in Europe and world-wide. I wish to express my sincere thanks to Rolf Henke for his dedication and vision in guiding the CEAS Aeronautical Journal from its first issue to the excellent reputation it has today.

Besides high-quality research and technology results in typical fields of traditional aeronautical science and engineering, the journal also addresses new developments in design and manufacturing of aircraft, rotorcraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Mitigating the climate impact caused by aviation is of course a key aspect in general. As such the journal disseminates knowledge and promotes aeronautical research, e.g. from current national research or European framework programmes, and it also fosters the transfer of knowledge into practice.

My goal is to further develop the CEAS Aeronautical Journal as a unique and powerful platform for the European and the world-wide research and technology community to strengthen their expertise and visibility in key areas of aeronautics.

I am very fortunate to join an established, excellent team of Editors who are all committed to contribute to the successful development of our journal: The Associate Editors, handling manuscripts in their specific research fields, both Managing Editors, Andrea Dieball and Cornelia Hillenherms, taking care of the whole day-to-day business, and Springer Nature Senior Editor, Silvia Schilgerius, guiding all of us carefully through the world of scientific publishing, as well as her colleagues from Springer Nature. Your contributions are greatly acknowledged, and I look forward to continuing our successful and pleasant collaboration. Aside from that, we would not even exist without our esteemed authors and reviewers. So, I am excited about receiving more of your excellent aeronautical research articles to the CEAS Aeronautical Journal in the future, and I count on all researchers to offer their valuable time acting as reviewers.

We see that the corona crisis still is a great challenge also for researchers: less personal exchange and only virtual conferences, cancelled experimental campaigns, to name only a few consequences, and therefore dramatically less scientific results and knowledge gain.

On the other hand, we became even more aware that the future of aviation depends on its ability to manage the technological transformation to full sustainability. If the aeronautical community does not succeed, we will lose a highly efficient means to connect people and to maintain a global economy. We are faced by challenges in almost every field of aerospace technology and operations: low-emission propulsion concepts are needed, using sustainable fuels; novel aircraft designs as a prerequisite for drastically reduced energy consumption; new ways in Air Traffic Management; to name only a few.

The CEAS Aeronautical Journal contributes to these research and development efforts by offering a high-quality platform for the dissemination of scientific and technological knowledge gain, thus advancing high-level aeronautical scientific and engineering work for the benefit of our mobile society — in Europe and around the globe.


Markus Fischer

Editor-in-Chief