Born: Canada
Primarily active in: Canada

From: Leadership Profile: Vertiflite January/February 2026

David Rancourt

Small-Town Roots, Big Aviation Dreams
David Rancourt was born in a small city between Montreal and Quebec City. His father worked as a bus driver and his mother ran a daycare from their home. Despite this non-aeronautical upbringing, Rancourt’s passion for flight ignited early. Around the age of 10 his father took him to a local remote-controlled (RC) airplane flying club, a visit that proved formative. By age 13, Rancourt had his own RC model plane and was learning to fly it, a hobby that would soon propel him toward piloting real aircraft.

Rancourt joined the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, earning both his glider pilot license and his private pilot license by the time he was 16 and 17 years old, respectively. This early hands-on exposure to aviation set the stage for his subsequent pursuit of an aerospace career.

Rancourt built an RC airplane for his high school project and brought it to the provincial science fair, which happened to be hosted that year at Université de Sherbrooke. Rancourt’s project won top honors and it attracted the attention of one of the judges, a professor from Sherbrooke’s engineering faculty. That professor (who is now Rancourt’s colleague) was impressed enough to offer the young student a scholarship to attend Université de Sherbrooke for his undergraduate studies. The offer was for a degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in aerospace. Rancourt was later invited to an international science fair in Russia in 2003 to showcase his RC airplane project, an early taste of the global aerospace community.

Hands-On Engineering and Education
At Université de Sherbrooke for his undergraduate degree, he joined was a student drone project team. That team even traveled to an international competition in Germany. Sherbrooke’s engineering program also featured a capstone project of remarkable scope, spanning four academic semesters. Rancourt’s team chose an ambitious goal: design, build, and flight-test an actual piloted aircraft. This hands-on experience of taking an aircraft from concept to the skies was invaluable, reinforcing his desire to work on complete flight vehicles and not just theoretical problems.

Upon completing his bachelor’s degree, Rancourt continued directly into graduate school. He first stayed at Sherbrooke for a research-based master’s in mechanical engineering, working on a gas turbine design project with a professor who would later become a colleague. After earning his master’s, he decided to seek out a PhD program where he could remain broad and work at the system level of aircraft design. This led Rancourt to Georgia Tech’s aerospace program, particularly the lab of Professor Dimitri Mavris. Rancourt boldly emailed Dr. Mavris while visiting Atlanta, expressing his interest. The outreach paid off as he was welcomed into the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL) for his PhD starting in August 2011. By the end of his PhD in 2017, Rancourt had not only completed his doctorate but also effectively earned a second M.Sc. along the way in the process.

Bridging Piloting and Engineering – A “Flying” Rotorcraft Concept
Rancourt has exemplified the rare dual mindset of pilot and engineer, earning his commercial multi-engine pilot license with instrument rating (multi-IFR), and even logged some hours in helicopters.

During his doctoral work at Georgia Tech, Rancourt got involved in a side project on airborne wind turbines; kite-like flying wings on tethers that generate energy. That sparked an idea: what if, instead of extracting power from a circling aircraft on a tether, one were to send power to the aircraft and use it to lift a load? In other words, could two small airplanes flying in circles on tethers serve as the “rotor” of a new kind of helicopter?

Rancourt devoted his doctoral thesis to exploring this idea, seeing a 5:1 payload to empty weight ratio in simulation. After completing his PhD and returning to Université de Sherbrooke as a professor, Rancourt continued to pursue this concept of circling tethered airplanes as a high-efficiency rotorcraft.
Rancourt secured funding and industry partners to build a prototype. The team built a prototype, flying two airplanes and were able to lift a payload. The experiment achieved the predicted performance, a 5:1 payload to empty weight fraction. This result surpasses even the goals of the current DARPA Lift Challenge for novel vertical lift systems.

Introduction to the Vertical Flight Society
It was during his time at Georgia Tech that Rancourt first became active in VFS. His first VFS Forum paper presentation was special, taking place in Montreal at the 2013 Forum (VFS’s 69th Annual Forum), giving Rancourt a chance to share his work in his home province. Over the years, he has presented multiple
papers at VFS conferences on rotorcraft and propeller research. He finds the Society’s niche focus and approachable scale to be a perfect fit. In the VFS community, Rancourt appreciates that one can easily meet fellow vertical flight enthusiasts and exchange technical ideas without feeling lost in the crowd.

Today, Dr. David Rancourt is back where his journey began, at Université de Sherbrooke, but now as an associate professor and rising leader in aerospace research. In the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, he supervises a diverse portfolio of projects. Rancourt’s team works on flight simulation, aircraft conceptual design, novel propulsion systems, and of course the tethered-airplane rotorcraft concept. His lab has partnered with Bombardier on conceptual design of new airplanes, and with engine-maker P&W on developing next-generation turbine technology. Safran’s involvement provides an avenue to potentially transition the concept toward a real application, and Exonetik’s expertise in electromagnetic actuators supports the unique technical demands of the tether system. In parallel, he continues to work with more conventional aerospace partners like Bell Textron.

Looking Ahead: Aligning Research with Operations
David is considering an unconventional plan for next year: taking a sabbatical from the university to work as an airline pilot. Rancourt recognizes that by flying professionally for a year, he’ll gain fresh insights into the day-to-day challenges pilots face with modern aircraft and airspace systems. Those insights can then guide his research toward solving relevant, real-world problems.
Between his innovative research, his engagement with the vertical flight community, and his dedication to keeping an operator’s perspective, David Rancourt exemplifies a new generation of aerospace leader. As he puts it, his career story is about “bringing that [pilot] experience closer to the aircraft” in the lab, ensuring that the human element is never lost in engineering. Whether he’s in the cockpit or the classroom, Rancourt is motivated by the same question that captivated him at age 10: understanding how airplanes fly, and how to make them fly even better.