Immersion Program gives hands-on experience

  • Published
  • By Shawn Jacobs
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  First Lt. Alex Henning should be getting some of the hands-on engineering experience he may have only dreamed of until now.

Lieutenant Henning, who has an aeronautical engineering degree from the Air Force Academy, is a project manager for the high-enthalpy arc-heater facilities at Arnold Engineering Development Center's (AEDC) Space and Missiles Ground Test Complex. He has just joined AEDC's Immersion Program, which allows young military officers and Department of Defense (DoD) civilians to work alongside Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA) engineers, learning valuable engineering techniques that will be useful to them later in their careers.

"I'll be embedded with ATA, the test contractor, and be paired with one of their senior engineers to perform analysis operations, a crucial piece regarding operations at Arnold Air Force Base," Lieutenant Henning said. "The goal [would be] to first enhance capabilities or testing knowledge at Arnold and provide some hands-on work done by military and contribute to our great mission.

"From the ATA side, [they may be able] to get some help in an area that maybe they are short on manpower right now, or it may be a task that would've been delayed until later in the fiscal year. From a personal standpoint, the goal is - since I'm paired with somebody who has a vast amount of job experience - to be able to pick their brain and learn from some of their experiences, challenges and successes they've had through the years."
Tom Best, director of engineering and technical management, coordinates the program
on the Air Force side, while Scott Bartlett is the lead for ATA.

Best said the Immersion Program came about as part of immediate past Commander Col. Arthur Huber's Technical Excellence Initiative. "He was thinking more along the lines of what it would do for our young officers, the lieutenants who are going into it now. They are getting real, hands-on experience. He believed they would learn some things by being immersed with ATA that they wouldn't have learned staying and doing just their government role and that they would be of great benefit later in their Air Force career."

The program is just as beneficial for DoD civilians, according to Best. "Sometimes when we get somebody to work for the government they come here straight out of college; they're immediately put into the project management role and they never get to do a lot of hands-on engineering.

"That's why we're selecting some of our civilians to go work for ATA. It makes our civilians much smarter about what goes on out here."

This fiscal year is the third year of the program. The first year featured one Immersion candidate, then-2nd Lt. Alex Hausman. Last year, 1st Lt. Marc Honrath and the first DoD civilian, Brandon Lucy, participated in the program.

Lucy, a seven-year AEDC employee with a background in mechanical engineering who has spent most of that time as a project manager in the Investments Branch, said the program has been very valuable to him.

"While my previous work in test system investment projects gave me a good understanding of our plant facilities and test equipment, this program gave me my first real exposure to a test period, our test processes and our technical reporting and interaction with the test customer," he said. "It is a perfect way to prepare for my role with my new unit, the Air Force Turbine Engine Ground Test Complex.

"Many of the things I've learned are required of anyone new to the turbine test mission at AEDC, whether they be with ATA or the Air Force. If I were to leave AEDC to do any job within the Air Force where turbine engines are involved, this experience will be helpful. It will undoubtedly be helpful to me while I am at AEDC."

ATA Project Engineer Mark Smith also sees the importance of the program. "I think certainly there can be value in terms of work that can be done out here. We frequently have tasks that we really can't take on because of priorities related to facilities and running the tests, and there are things that would be nice to do that we can get some help with from these guys. It's definitely value added for our test customers."