| | April 23, 2005 - Volume 2, Number 2
ASTEC receives Raytheon Coin Award
| The National Institute for Aviation Research's Aircraft Structural Testing and Evaluation Center (ASTEC), located at the full-scale structural laboratory on Raytheon Aircraft's manufacturing campus in Wichita, has received one of Raytheon's Achievement Coins of Excellence.
| Awarded for their efforts on the Hawker Horizon structural testing, the Horizon Structural Test Team received the award in a ceremony in late February.
The achievement coins are given by any level of management for "on the spot" recognition of individuals or teams displaying one of the Beechcrafter attributes: Process, People, Customer, Partners and Quality.
"This team had the daunting task of completing all structural tests as a prerequisite for the provisional certification," Paul Jonas, Hawker Horizon Chief Engineer said. "This required the design setup and test of two major combined conditions, three main landing gear conditions, and twelve aileron and elevator systems tests."
Under a strict two month deadline, a deadline which had never been accomplished before, the team came together and gave their evenings and weekends to see the goal met. On Dec. 22, 2004, the team successfully conducted fuselage condition 2 to satisfy the remaining test requirement and with that, the team compiled the data and was prepared for a briefing with the FAA the following day.
"This team overcame many obstacles," Jonas said. "It was the professional attitude, technical capability and perseverance which made this successful. There was not anyone who would let this, or each other, fail."
The Horizon Structural Test Team has been a part of ASTEC, and since September 2004 when NIAR obtained the full-scale structural test laboratory at Raytheon Aircraft.
Its members include Larry Braden, Harry Clayton, Robert E. Tucker, Jon E. Karnes, Marvin MacKay, David Morrison, Matt Peek, Jim O'Daniel, JD Nesbitt, James G. Wright, Linda Londagin, Daniel Pizinger, Robert A. Custer, Brian Jones, Fred Taylor, Betty Woodrow, Tim Hickey, Steven J. Perkins, Larry Morton, Sam Alder, James Dorsch.
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NIAR researcher receives Wright Bros. award
 | Michael Papadakis, a professor in the aerospace engineering department and director of the Aircraft Icing Laboratory at the National Institute for Aviation Research, was the recipient of the Society of Automotive Engineers 2003 Wright Brothers Medal.
| The award, established in 1927, recognizes the author(s) of the best paper(s) relating to the invention, development, design, construction or operation of an aircraft and/or spacecraft presented at an SAE meeting.
According to SAE International, consideration for the award is given to the value of the author's contribution to the state-of-the-art in furthering flight technology, be that in aircraft or spacecraft systems, its parts, components, subsystems or accessories. Wichita State University is one of the leading academic institutions in aircraft icing research and has strong ties to the aircraft icing community. Since 1982, WSU, combined with NIAR in 1990, have conducted over 60 collaborative icing research projects with NASA, the FAA, and the aviation industry. The paper presented by Papadakis and team documents the first public evaluation of supercooled large droplet impingement on both clean airfoils and airfoils with pre-cast ice shapes. The research was sponsored by NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration. The work presented in this paper is related to the development, testing and certification of ice protection systems for aircraft. WSU has collaborated with NASA, the FAA, Boeing and the General Aviation Industry on water droplet impingement research since 1984. In the last 20 years, WSU and its partners have worked to develop experimental and data reduction methods, advanced imaging techniques, simulation methods and an extensive and unique data base related to small and large water droplet impingement on aircraft surfaces. "I have known Papadakis since WSU started working with Boeing on a project at the NASA Icing Tunnel," Marlin Breer, Techincal Fellow at the Boeing Company said. "The research they're doing will help industry design in a way to take care of the large water droplet problem. Right now, there are no regulations for this, so we have to design for it." "This work has a direct impact on the development of trajectory and ice accretion codes which are used to support the development and certification of ice protection systems for aircraft," Papadakis said. "We have developed a comprehensive and unique water impingement data base which will be released to the icing community in 2005." In addition, Papadakis says their work has resulted in significant discoveries related to large droplet impingement physics which they will continue to explore with the objective of improving experimental and simulation tools used in aircraft icing design and certification. The medal was awarded on Nov. 3, 2004 during the World Aviation Congress in Reno, Nevada. Papadakis, the lead author, shares the medal with Arief Rachman, with CCH Incorporated, See-Cheuk Wong, with WSU, Colin S. Bidwell and Timothy J. Bencic, both with NASA Glenn Research Center.
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