Page 1 - Edwards AFB Desert Wings 6-26-15

Volume 62, Number 50 Serving the community of Edwards Air Force Base, California June 26, 2015

www.edwards.af.mil – www.facebook.com/edwardsairforcebase

AFTC needs to be ‘agile, ready, right’
by Rebecca Amber war and then there’s a retrenchment where

Staff writer we find out how we’re going to make our-

selves better – we are entering that re-
The Air Force Test Center added a page trenchment period once again.”
to its three-year history June 18 when Maj. “We must be prepared for the offset
Gen. David A. Harris stepped into the role strategies that are required in fiscally diffi-
of commander.
cult times where we can use our American
Gen. Ellen M. Pawlikowski, commander ingenuity to advance much faster than our
of Air Force Materiel Command, presided potential enemies.”
as the center transitioned to a new leader Harris’s priorities will build onto a long
for the very first time.
legacy of test at Edwards AFB. Accord-
“The mission of the test center is a sa- ing to Pawlikowski, there has not been
cred trust. If we fail, we must face the a single aircraft in the Air Force inven-
widows, widowers and the children left tory since World War II that has not come
fatherless or motherless because of the through the Air Force Test Center before
system’s fail. We are the safety net; we becoming operational.
are the warrior’s best friend,” said Harris. Harris began his career as an electronic
To keep the center guided, the new com- warfare officer flying EF-111 combat mis-
mander has set three priorities, to be agile, sions during the first Gulf War. In 1995 he
to be ready and to be right.
transitioned to the test family as a student
Agility, he said, is being able to respond at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School
to a rapidly changing world. To accom- here at Edwards. After graduation, he was
plish this, the test center needs to be or- immediately assigned to the 419th Flight
ganized, trained and equipped for maxi- Test Squadron as a B-1 experimental flight
mum efficiency while eliminating wasteful test navigator and later as the flight com-
practices.
mander for the B-1 and unmanned aerial
To be ready means staying on the lead- vehicles. During his time at Edwards he
ing edge of technological advances. This also served as project manager for the RS-
happens in the areas of cyber, directed en- 68 Rocket Engine Test; the last rocket en-
Air Force photograph by Rebecca Amber

ergy and hypersonic flight. gine to be domestically built in the United Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, commander of Air Force Materiel Command, hands the Air Force
“If you look back over the history of States to date. Test Center guidon to Maj. Gen. David Harris June 18. Harris assumed command from Maj.
Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr. (right) during a change of command ceremony held in Hangar 1600.
the Air Force and airplanes, you’ll notice See CHANGE, Page 3
it’s on about a 20-year cycle. There’s a
Students study Earth from NASA flying lab
Thirty-two undergraduate stu- play a pivotal role in the acquisi- Research Center in Hampton,
dents are participating in an eight- tion of process-oriented knowledge Virginia, and the Ames Research NASA photograph
week NASA Airborne Science field about the Earth system, as well Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Ad-
experience designed to immerse as calibration and validation of ditional mentors are university fac- Matthew Irish, a senior Climate Impact Engineering major at the University
them in the agency’s Earth science NASA’s space-borne Earth obser- ulty members, postdoctoral fellows of Michigan, attaches tubing to the Whole Air Sampler (WAS) instrument
research. vations, remote-sensing measure- and graduate students from the Uni- installed on the NASA DC-8 airborne laboratory for the Student Airborne
ments and high-resolution imagery versity of California in Irvine, San Research Program mission.
Now in its seventh year, NASA’s for Earth system science. Diego, Santa Cruz and Davis. The
Student Airborne Research Pro- University of Colorado in Boulder,
gram provides a unique opportunity Hosted by NASA’s Armstrong the University of Wisconsin and the
for undergraduate students major- Flight Research Center facility in University of Houston are also pro-
ing in the sciences, mathematics Palmdale, Calif., SARP kicked off viding mentors.
or engineering fields to participate on June 15 with lectures by uni-
in all aspects of a NASA Airborne versity faculty members, NASA The aircraft will overfly dairies
Science research campaign. scientists and program managers. and oil fields in the San Joaquin
There will be students aboard the Valley, as well as parts of Los An-
Airborne science research uses agency’s DC-8 on each of the six geles, the Santa Barbara Channel
aircraft as sky-high platforms for flights during the week of June 22 and the Salton Sea at altitudes as
making observations, gathering re- when they will measure pollution, low as 1,000 feet in order to collect
mote-sensing data with instruments aerosols (small particles suspended air samples, measure aerosols and
or taking samples. These data can in the atmosphere) and air quality air quality. The DC-8 can fly at al-
be coupled to NASA’s global sat- in the Los Angeles basin and in titudes of 42,000 feet, carry 30,000
ellite observations for a better un- California’s Central Valley. The pounds of scientific instruments
derstanding of the complete Earth students will also use airborne and and seats up to 45 experimenters
system. ground-based remote-sensing in- and crew.
struments to study forest ecology
SARP participants are given the in the Sierra Nevada and ocean During the last two flights, half
opportunity to observe and partici- biology along the California coast. of the students will be in the field
pate in the instrument installation, taking validation or complementary
flight planning and scientific data Students are mentored by NASA measurements while the DC-8 flies
collection that is the basis of every scientists from Headquarters in
successful NASA Earth science air- Washington, D.C., the Langley See NASA, Page 3
borne campaign. These campaigns