Missoula, Montana, United States
I am currently an active duty Air Force Captain, serving as an Assistant Director of Operations for the 411th Flight Test Squadron, F-22 Combined Test Force at Edwards AFB, CA. In this capacity I am responsible for scheduling short- and long-term operations, deriving and maintaining unit standards, and directing the flight test engineering cadre dedicated to the safe, secure, effective, and efficient developmental flight test of the F-22 Raptor. I have served in the U.S. Air Force since 2014 and am active test conductor, test director, and instructor with experience in multiple facets of flight test including traditional flight sciences, mission systems testing, and weapons employments. I am qualified as non-rated officer aircrew with time in 25+ airframes with the majority of that time spent in the F-16.
Responsible for the developmental test efforts for the F-22 in a safe, secure, effective and efficient manner. I am an active test conductor, test director, and flight test engineer instructor with experience executing complex mission system tests, leading traditional flight science efforts, and employing live weapons.
Plan and conduct developmental test efforts for $87M per year F-22 modernization portfolio. I lead a team of 24 flight test engineers (comprised of AD, government civilians, and contractors) in the daily execution of safe, secure, effective and efficient flight test for a unique $2B test fleet. Notable events: - Led the return to flight operations for Edwards AFB following the COVID pandemic enabling critical testing to resume across various organizations. - Led a deployment of 42 to Eglin AFB, FL in support of the #1 Air Force weapon program. - Conducted the first flight of a high-risk, $1.4B envelope expansion effort.
I mastered a demanding academic and flying curriculum consisting of 50 semester hours of graduate-level academic instruction in Flight Test Engineering and over 70 sorties in 20+ DoD, foreign military, and civilian aircraft. In addition to in aircraft instruction, the course consisted of mission control room activities aimed at providing test conductor fundamentals. As part of the curriculum, our Test Management Project team HAVE DRAGON sought to determine the usability and effectiveness of two GPS-based capabilties, a dual-polarized antenna (DPA) and advance receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (ARAIM). ARAIM is a method of generating horizontal and vertical protection levels (H/VPLs) bounding the maximum error of a multi-constellation receiver. Have DRAGON also conducted the first-ever flight test of the novel DPA which was custom designed and manufactured by the Stanford GPS Lab. The DPA was designed to estimate signal direction of arrival by exploiting the difference between left and right circular polarization. The ARAIM receiver and DPA were installed on an Air Force C-12J aircraft and tested in a variety of flight test maneuvers. In addition, flight tests were conducted during the 2019 DT Navfest GPS jamming event hosted by Edwards Air Force Base. Both capabilities aimed to ensure the availability and integrity of a GPS signal, critical for A2AD environments.
Supported operational testing for F-15 / F-22 / F-35 modernization programs. In this capacity, I oversaw data collection efforts and created complex analysis tools and applications to analyze operational capabilities for acquisition efforts totaling $9.6B. Additionally, I led verification, validation, and accreditation efforts for advanced modeling and simulation environments. Lastly, I played a key role in a deployment to Tyndall AFB for 19 live fire events supporting the integration of advanced weapons onto the F-22.
My thesis research focused on the use of acoustic pressure waves and more specifically, acoustic beamforming as SHM and NDI techniques for the detection and isolation of damage in metallic and composite materials. In terms of NDI, this investigation employed an acoustic array with a helical pattern of microphones used to detect the time difference of arrival (TDOA) of acoustic waves. The TDOA would inform specific phase delays for each microphone that could be applied in post-processing to then simulate the acoustic wave as it propagated across the material. With respect to SHM, the acoustic array was used to monitor a composite sample placed in a load cell in real-time. Using the acoustic array, damage was mapped to a stress-strain curve for the material to determine the applicability of using acoustics for identification of early onset structural damage. See Education Section for more information.
In addition to the vast course work demanded at the Academy, my aeronautical studies focused primarily on aerodynamics (incompressible & compressible) and fluid dynamics. This focus culminated in my summer research at the Academy doing the preliminary computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies on the newly installed Ludwig Tube, capable of Mach 5+ velocities. The investigation sought to create and validate in-house models of the flow field around various objects placed in the throat section of the tunnel. These results were ultimately used to characterize and validate the operation / functionality of the new hardware. Cadet Leadership roles included: (1) Cadet Squadron Superintendent and (2) Cadet Squadron Commander See Education Section for more information.