Symposium and Luncheon Speakers Set

By Richard Greenleaf

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, MD—The 57th Annual U.S. Naval Test Pilot School Symposium is scheduled for April 14-15 here. All past graduates are invited to register and participate in this year's events.

This year's event begins April 14 with a scramble golf tournament that has a 9 a.m. shotgun start. Many prizes will be awarded for the event, including the chance to win a new Ford vehicle with a "hole-in-one" on one of the holes. An informal evening reception will be held at 7 p.m. in the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum.

The Technical Symposium presentations will be held April 15 in the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School Auditorium, beginning with a continental breakfast at 8 a.m. The symposium is free, and all are encouraged to attend. The presentations will encompass many of the test and evaluation projects currently ongoing around NAS Patuxent River, as well as elsewhere in the country. The presentation topics are as follows (all times are approximate):

MORNING SESSION

8:30 - 9 a.m. USNTPS Fixed Wing Syllabus Update (Navy Cmdr. David Woodbury, Flight Instructor, and Steve Potter, Academic Instructor, USNTPS)

9 - 9:30 a.m. World Rotorcraft Market Trends and Forces 2005 (Rhett Flater, Executive Director Helicopter Society International)

9:45 - 10:15 a.m. C-5B Upgrades, Lessons Learned (Court Bivens, Chief Engineer, Det 4, 418th Flight Test Squadron, Marietta, Ga., and Raymond Heineman, Lead Performance and Flying Qualities Analyst, C-5 Avionics Modernization Program)

10:15 - 10:45 a.m. Comanche Main Rotor Air Resonance (Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bill Fell, Lead Test Pilot, Block III Combined Test Team, AH-64D, U.S. Army Aviation Technical Test Center and Bruce Kethmann, Flying Qualities Group Engineer, The Boeing Company)

AFTERNOON SESSION

1:30 - 2 p.m. GBU-12 Laser Guided Bomb Accuracy Investigation (Shawn Dennihan, Class Desk, In-Service Weapons, PMA-201, NAVAIR)

2 - 2:30 p.m. Brownout Situational Awareness Upgrade System (Army Maj. Chuck Walls, Test Pilot, U.S. Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD); Nathan Scoggin, Test Engineer, AATD and Steve Paris, Test Pilot, AATD)

2:45 - 3:15 p.m. FAA Military Certification Office (Dave Downey, SES, Manager Rotorcraft Directorate, Federal Aviation Administration)

3:15 - 3:45 p.m. CH-53E Ramp Mounted Weapon System Evaluation (Marine Corps Maj. Tony Archer, Operations Officer and Test Pilot, HX-21, and Chris Barrett, Flight Test Engineer, Air Vehicle/Stores Compatibility Division)

The Naval Test Wing Atlantic awards luncheon will be held April 15 at 11:30 a.m. in the Cedar Point Officers' Club. The guest speaker will be Douglas B. Shane, vice president/business development, director of flight operations, and test pilot at Scaled Composites, LLC in Mohave, Calif. He was hired as the first engineer at Scaled (and the 4th employee) right out of college in 1982. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas.

His flight test background includes eight first flights of new types (most recently, the White Knight), the performance or direction of more than 30 accident-free test programs for more than 23 years, and 3,500 flight hours in 135 aircraft types.

Shane has been a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots' Board of Directors since 1996, and is currently its president. He was awarded the Iven C. Kincheloe Award from the Society in 1997 for Outstanding Professional Accomplishment in Flight Test, and is a 2005 recipient of the Robert J. Collier Trophy for his work on the SpaceShipOne program.

Founded in 1982 by Burt Rutan, Scaled Composites has broad experience in air vehicle design, tooling and manufacturing, specialty composite structure design, analysis and fabrication, and developmental flight test. Currently, one of their most visible projects is the SpaceShipOne program, the development of a high-altitude supersonic light aircraft. Shane will speak on the current status of the SpaceShipOne program.

-USN-