From Concept to Flight

Photo Credit: NASA/Terry Zaperach.

Concept to Flight Engineering from Experts

Method Aeronautics was founded in 2019 by the engineering and program management team responsible for the design, manufacture, and flight test of the Vanilla Aircraft VA001: a 36-foot wingspan, 600-pound, 10-day endurance, world record holding unmanned aircraft. At the time this team flew the VA001 on a non-stop, unrefueled flight of over 5-days (landing with 3 days of fuel remaining), which was the longest for an unmanned aircraft powered by internal combustion/jet, and was the 3rd longest flight in history of an aircraft heavier-than-air. The VA001 has since surpassed its own record, flying for over 8 days.
 

The team was nominated for the 2017 National Aeronautic Association Robert J. Collier Trophy, awarded annually “for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America…which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year.”

Method Aeronautics is currently providing concept development, detail design, fabrication, and flight test support on several unmanned aircraft programs.

Meet Our Team

Daniel Hatfield

Chief Designer

Daniel has a distinguished career in aerospace, including 12 years of unmanned-vehicle-specific experience. As the Senior Aerodynamicist and a Project Engineer at Scaled Composites, Daniel was responsible for aerodynamic, performance, and aeroelastic design and analysis of the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. He also performed configuration selection and performance analysis for SpaceShipOne, and while at Aurora Flight Sciences Daniel was Lead for aerodynamics and structures of the Orion UAS. For Vanilla Aircraft Daniel was co-founder, and the aerodynamics and structures design lead. Excluding solar aircraft, the last three aircraft to fly over 72 hours unrefueled utilized Daniel’s aerodynamics: The GlobalFlyer, Aurora Orion, and Vanilla VA001.

Neil Boertlein

Chief Engineer

Neil has 12 years direct experience in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) design and test, with particular focus in systems engineering, modeling and simulation, and propulsion. Neil was co-founder and Chief Engineer at Vanilla Aircraft. Immediately prior to co-founding Vanilla Aircraft, Neil served as the Project Engineer and Propulsion IPT Lead of a turbine/electric-hybrid UAV development program which completed first flight in 2009.

Jeremy Novara

Program Management and Operations

Leading program management and operations at Method Aeronautics is Jeremy Novara. At Vanilla Aircraft, Jeremy held overall responsibility for program management, integration and test, and was Flight Director for all flight tests. Prior to co-founding Vanilla Aircraft, Jeremy performed integration and test on several unmanned aircraft development programs, and was part of a team to obtain from the FAA one of the first twelve Experimental Airworthiness Certificates for civil UAS operations.

Get in touch
with our team

  703-462-8992
  info@method.aero
Falls Church, VA