Andrew Rae graduated from Imperial College in 1987 and joined the High-Lift Section of the Aerodynamics Department at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough. His activities there concentrated on the physics of multi-element aerofoils, largely but not exclusively for civil aircraft, including Reynolds number effects and wake vorticity. Based at the 5m Pressurised Wind Tunnel at Farnborough he was involved in the development and application of wind tunnel corrections and test techniques. He has managed tests at over 30 other major facilities in seven countries and worked on projects for Airbus, Boeing and several Formula 1 teams. He was Deputy Chairman of the Technical & Scientific Board of the European Wind Tunnel Association (EWA) and within this framework was the focus for wind tunnel correction and advanced simulation methodologies.
He was a QinetiQ Approved Technical Authority and, as such, the signatory for the aerodynamics clearance of flight test aircraft (including E-3D Sentry, BAC 1-11, Canberra, Andover, Nimrod, Hercules, Jaguar, Tornado, Sea King, Chinook and Lynx) modified to accommodate trials or upgrade equipment. He became a QinetiQ Fellow in 2008 for his contribution to applied and experimental aerodynamics. He was a member of the Steering Committee of the Smart Fixed-Wing Aircraft element of the EC Clean Skies programme aimed at the flight testing of flow and loads control technologies. He has worked on many non-aeronautical applications including road and rail transport, wind engineering and sport.
He is currently Professor of Engineering responsible for engineering research and strategy across the University’s partners, and holds a personal Chair as Professor of Experimental and Applied Aerodynamics. He is a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society's Aerodynamics Specialist Group and sits on two NATO Applied Vehicle Technology Panels. He is an External Examiner at Cranfield University for the MSc in Military Aerospace and Airworthiness and at Brunel university for the MSc in Aerospace Engineering. He is a Visiting Professor at Zhengzhou Institute of Aviation Management and was, until recently, a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Engineering Design in the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Surrey University.