Rate My Professor Alistair Saddington

Professor Alistair Saddington serves as Professor of Defence Aeronautics at Cranfield University’s Shrivenham campus, where he also heads the Centre for Defence Engineering and Physical Science. He earned a First Class BEng (Hons) in Aeromechanical Systems Engineering from Cranfield Institute of Technology and an EngD from Cranfield University, with his doctoral research centered on the aerodynamics of short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft propulsion integration. Qualified as a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS), and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Professor Saddington possesses over 25 years of expertise in aerospace engineering spanning industry and academia, particularly in research leadership, management, postgraduate teaching, and supervision.

His professional career commenced at Rolls-Royce Bristol, focusing on compressor aerodynamic design and research, before returning to Cranfield University at Shrivenham. There, he spearheaded the development of the part-time MSc programme in Military Aerospace and Airworthiness and currently acts as its Course Director. The Centre he leads encompasses five specialized groups: Air Platforms and Weapons, Autonomy and Mechatronics, Chemistry and Environmental Science, CBRN and Survivability, and Cyber and Electromagnetic Activities. Professor Saddington’s research interests include aeronautical systems, airworthiness, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), flight physics, gas turbines and propulsion, vehicle aerodynamics, and weapons engineering. He specializes in both computational and experimental approaches to aerodynamics, engineering design, and optimisation. Notable publications include “Statistical analysis of store release from a weapon bay at transonic mach number” (Defence Technology, 2026), “Operating itself safely: merging the concepts of ‘safe to operate’ and ‘operate safely’ for lethal autonomous weapons systems containing artificial intelligence” (Defence Studies, 2025), “Angle of attack effects on the induced structural loads of a weapons bay” (Aerotecnica Missili & Spazio, 2025), “Influence of door gap on aeroacoustics and structural response of a cavity” (AIAA Journal, 2024), and “Hilbert–Huang Spectral Analysis of Cavity Flows Incorporating Fluidic Spoilers” (AIAA Journal, 2023). He is a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Special Interest Group on Weapons Science and Technology.