Portrait

AeroFEM GmbH was founded in April 2002 as an engineering consulting company. Each of the three partners Arne Vollan, Jörg Spichtig and Patrice Verdan had already accumulated between 10 to 30 years of experience in the aircraft industry when they founded AeroFEM. Therefore, the company's main focus at the time was in aviation and wind energy. In the following years, the client base grew and extended beyond the aviation industry. New customers in transportation, steel manufacturing, machine construction and medical technology developed confidence in AeroFEM. Besides simple structural calculations and verifications, AeroFEM today offers services for a complete product development cycle (project management, construction, testing, engineering and certification). Furthermore, AeroFEM continues to be successful in sales and the development of CAE software and continues to support its customers by the sharing of its know-how.

The history of our company

18 years of continually improving and expanding AeroFEM GmbH

Our team is getting younger again

February, recruitment of Leopold Zangerle as calculation engineer
June, recruitment of Jean-Yves Käch as CFD and calculation engineer
July, recruitment of Kiran Kolhe as calculation engineer
October, recruitment of Adrian Holtzhauer as calculation engineer
November, recruitment of Laurin Rüdisüli as design engineer
November, personnel changes in the DO
- Thomas Bissig takes over the HoOA function from Jörg Spichtig
- Jörg Spichtig takes over the HoISM function from Karsten Fischer

AeroFEM celebrates its 20th anniversary and is restructured

AeroFEM celebrates its 20th anniversary on April 19, 2022
September - December, restructuring of the business relationships
- Arne Vollan ends his membership of the Executive Board after 20 years
- Daniel Dörig becomes Managing Director, Danny Wadewitz becomes a member of the Executive Board
- AeroFEM Holding AG is founded and becomes the sole owner of AeroFEM GmbH
- The operational business remains with AeroFEM GmbH, so that nothing changes for our customers

The race to catch up begins

July 2021, recruitment of Joël Mathis as Design Engineer
Contract with Oliver Bachmann as Flight Test Engineer (FTE) and CVE Panel 1
5 new workstations are purchased and the number of NX CAD licences is increased
A new workstation with 128 cores is purchased to meet the demands in the CFD area

This year we expanded our team again

April 2020, Employment of Andreas von Ballmoos as Principal Design Engineer

DOA EASA.21J.644 approval

January 2019, New office light installation for the staff, every working space gets a dimmable LED lamp
January 2019, Employment of Adam Fetsch for structural calculations
20th of May 2019, The Design Organisation Approval EASA.21J.644 is achieved. AeroFEM is ready for new STC's and Minor Changes.
June 2019, Letter of DOA Acceptance FOCA.21J.005 is achieved
September 2019, Employment of Stefan Rohrer as Design Engineer

New website and company logo

AeroFEM gets a new company logo and a redesigned homepage
AeroFEM acquires Smart Expert Partner Status for Simcenter 3D
Acquisition of a CFD Linux Workstation with 28 Cores + STAR-CCM+ Licences
AeroFEM starts using and distributing Simcenter 3D
Expansion of the server infrastructure 55TB HP MSA
May 2018, Employment of Oliver Ryan for fluid dynamics (CFD)
September 2018, Employment of Maria Torrentallé Dot for structural calculations
October 2018, Employment of Daniel Heber for structural calculations
November 2018, Employment of Remo Felber for structural calculations
December 2018, The new homepage is online

Our team is getting younger

Optimization of the working spaces, every employee gets a standing desk
Adjustment of the workstation infrastructure to Windows 10
June 2017, Expansion of our team with the employment of Luca Maurer (CAD engineer)
October 2017, Kevin Hodel as CAD engineer increases the size and rejuvenates our design team
Our most extensive project this year is the EASA DO Approval, with the "Bubble Window EC-135" sample project. In collaboration with Kürzi Avionics AG, Air Zermatt and Armasuisse flight tests of the AeroFEM Bubble Window installation were successfully conducted on the 8th of May at the airfield Raron. The test is part of the certification program and another milestone on the way to the EASA DO Approval.

Junkers F-13 and Solar Impulse SA

97 years after their original first flight on the 15th of September 2016, the reproduction of the legendary Junkers F-13 started on its second first flight in Dübendorf. We were able to actively support this unique and exciting project as engineering partner for the last two years and are happy about this grand event.
Purchase of Solid Edge licence to expand our design offer
Renewal of the telephone system (from ISDN to IP)
We congratulate the Solar Impulse SA team for circumnavigating the earth. We are proud to be a part of the track record.
May 2016, Application for EASA DOA
August 2016, We get more support in structural calculations and construction with Silvan Ebneter
December 2016, With his 70 years, Walter Meier leaves us for his well deserved retirement.

First flight of PC-24

Calculation server upgrade (2x Dalco Server each with 16 Cores, 384 GB Ram, 3TB SSD Raid)
On May 11, 2015, another milestone in the history of Pilatus was achieved – the first flight of the PC-24. We are proud as a development partner of Pilatus to support this project.
The collapsed market value of the Euro challenges the management, regardless we could finish the year with financial profit.
Purchase of CATIA licence to put into practice for projects

This year we expanded our team again

Acquirement of SolidWorks to expand our CAD offer
Teamcenter implementation concluded and productive
March 2014, Employment of Roman Benz for structural calculations
April 2014, Employment of Michel Obrist for construction and structural calculations
June 2014, Employment of Silvio Naon for structural calculations and construction support

Our team continues to grow

Server IT infrastructure is changed to Citrix Server HP G8
Implementation of the organisation manual according to EN 9100, ISO 9001
March 2013, New to the team: Andres Graf as structural calculator with long-time experience with NX simulation
November 2013, Employment of Benjamin Meienberg for structural calculation

AeroFEM celebrates 10-year anniversary

January 2012, Employment of Danny Wadewitz for structural calculations
On the 29th of June, 2012, we celebrated our 10-year anniversary with an open house day. Many thanks to everyone who visited.
Arne Vollan published his book "Computational Techniques of Rotor Dynamics with Finite Element Method".
September 2012, Expansion of the construction team with Matthias Kaserer
November 2012, Employment of Mathias Burch for construction and structural calculations

Ehrennadel der Deutschen Luftfahrt for Arne Vollan

The Ehrennadel der Deutschen Luftfahrt was awarded to the Solar Impulse team in Bremen at the 60th German aerospace congress. Representing AeroFEM GmbH, Arne Vollan received the prize, for his significant contribution to the development of the Solar Impulse project.
February 2011, This year we could expand our team with Thomas Huber for structural calculations
September 2011, Walter Meier joins the AeroFEM team for support in Pilatus projects

New telephone numbers

We expand our team and need new telephone numbers
April 2010, Employment of Robert Kurtz for structural calculations
May 2010, Employment of Simon Fischli for structural calculations
September 2010, Employment of Carla Sanchez for marketing and administration

Teamcenter engineering of PLM-Software was implemented

January 2009, Implementation of Teamcenter
January 2009, CAD System gets expanded with NX Motion Simulation-RecurDyn
August 2009, Marco Niederberger is our new employee for structural calculations

New training room is ready to use

January 2008, Expansion of the office rooms
February 2008, New training room is ready to use
June 2008, Adjustment of the server to virtual environment (HyperV)
October 2008, New acquisition of all workstations (throughout 64-bit system, Windows XP)
December 2008, Employment of Felix Hug for structural calculations

AeroFEM celebrates its 5-year anniversary

On the 18th of April we can already look back on 5 exciting and interesting years.
December 2007, The workplace got too cramped – planning and conversion of the new office rooms

AeroFEM takes up a sponsorship with World Vision

March 2006, UGS concluded the OEM-Arrangement with MSC Software - many Nastran for Windows customers change to auf FEMAP with NX Nastran
December 2006, AeroFEM takes up a sponsorship with World Vision with a godchild in Mauritania.
December 2006, Expansion of the server structure, installation of Exchange Server 2003

Expansion of the infrastructure

January 2005, The singular backup-workstation is not enough anymore. A server structure with tape drive for backups is installed.
July 2005, Purchase of a LS-Dyna license for impact and bird strike calculations
September 2005, For calculation jobs a DALCO Dual Processor Dual Core AMD Opteron Server is installed.
September 2005, The NX Nastran 4.0 with Rotordynamic (made by AeroFEM) was released.
12. December 2005, Thomas Bissig expands our team for design and stress engineering.

AeroFEM moves into the new office building

January 2004, AeroFEM expands the engineering team with Daniel Dörig for design and stress engineering.
January 2004, Patrice Verdan is now employed 100% at AeroFEM and takes the role of company management together with Jörg Spichtig. Arne Vollan focuses on technically challenging tasks.
20th of February 2004, EDS changes to UGS PLM Solutions, AeroFEM is official sales and supporting partner of UGS PLM Solution.
15th of March 2004, AeroFEM gets a new home in Ennetbürgen, Aumühlestrasse 10 because the old office rooms got too small. AeroFEM forms an office community with ddpConcepts and Gottier Engineering.
September 2004, AeroFEM becomes NAFEMS member

AeroFEM is official sales partner of EDS

August 2003, Employment of Anita Verdan for accounting, bookkeeping and HR tasks
November 2003, FEMAP is taken over by EDS. AeroFEM is official sales and supporting partner of EDS for NX Nastran for FEMAP.

Foundation of AeroFEM GmbH

AeroFEM GmbH was founded on the 18th of April, 2002. Each of the partners Arne Vollan, Jörg Spichtig and Patrice Verdan had already accumulated between 10 to 30 years of experience in aircraft development at the time. Therefore, the company primarily focused on aviation and wind energy.
From the beginning, AeroFEM takes the representation of FEM Pro-Postprocessor FEMAP SDRC on behalf of CADFEM.
On the 1st of May, 2002, we move in to our office room in Stans, Wirzboden 28