"I have worked with several past OAE recipients and they are engineers of the highest caliber who embody professionalism, achieve significant, lofty goals and contribute meaningful advancements to aerospace technology. I am humbled and honored to be counted among such extraordinary individuals.”
Scott Claflin has committed his career to propulsion and power systems, including rotating detonation engines. After graduating from Purdue in 1987, Scott began work at the Rocketdyne division of Rockwell International. He started as a development engineer in the Advanced Combustion Devices group, conducting hot-fire tests of liquid and hybrid rockets.
In 2009, he convinced the president of Rocketdyne to fund a demonstration of a rotating detonation engine (RDE). They had the RDE up and running in 9 months, showing through multiple hot-fires that it was feasible and capable.
Through his innovative perseverance, Scott has has delivered several “firsts" in aerospace: The first liquid-fueled RDE demonstration in the western hemisphere; Demonstration of the world’s largest air-breathing RDE; The first tactical hybrid rocket that used non-toxic hydroxyl ammonium nitrate oxidizer; and a hot-fire test of the world’s first rocket engine to be transpiration-cooled with methane.
Scott also stood up Rocketdynes' Power Innovations division, which acts as an innovative startup developing prototypes of new systems from inside a large corporation. He leads multifunction programs generating more than $30 million in revenue.
Scott is an associate fellow in the AIAA, and has served on multiple propulsion-related committees at the organization. He has also served as reviewer of the AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power, and on the Editorial Advisory Board of the JANNAF Journal.
Scott has two patents and 15 publications to his name, covering a variety of propulsion technologies.