Hari Prasad (Lower Sixth) has won the prestigious Sir Michael Marshall Young Persons Lecture Competition after giving an ambitious and in-depth talk on ionic wind-powered aircraft.

Held by the Cambridge branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society, the competition is endorsed by the branch’s Honorary Life Vice-President Sir Michael Marshall, who is President of the Cambridge-based Marshall Group, and aims to encourage young people to engage with aeronautics.

Participants had to give a presentation on an aerospace engineering topic of their choice to a panel of judges. Hari spoke about an aircraft with no moving parts, such as turbo fan, turbine engine or propellers, which is instead powered by ionic wind – the airflow created when an electric current is passed between a thin and a thick electrode.

He said: “Ionic wind is a concept that was discovered in the 1920s but had been left behind in modern times because it had been decided it would be impossible to fly a plane using it. However, some MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) physicists actually managed to fly a plane using this technology in November 2018.

“I searched for ‘cool engineering’ on the internet and found out about it that way. I thought it looked really interesting to give a presentation on because it’s something I knew nothing about and it gave me the opportunity to learn something new.

“I was surprised to win because I was quite nervous when I was giving the lecture and the other speakers were very good. I’d like to thank my friend Jaeheon Shim and Perse teacher Dr Black, because they gave me feedback before I did the lecture and asked me some difficult questions, which really helped me when I was asked questions from the judges, so I think that was a key factor in helping me win.”

Having won the competition, Hari has a chance of further success as he will now be entered into the Royal Aeronautical Society’s NE Rowe National Lecture Competition.

Listen to Hari talk more about his findings below.