 Hi, my name is Jessica Peterson. I am a flight test engineer at Edwards Air Force Base And I'm going to talk to you about some collision avoidance systems and how we did flight tests to test them a Little background on me. So I grew up in the Antelope Valley I went to Courts Hill Elementary and then Joe Walker Middle School Go Jets and then Courts Hill High School After I graduated from high school, I went and I got an engineering degree in mechanical engineering. I then took a job at Edwards I've been there since 2005 and I've worked on many different airplanes and different systems since then in 2017 I got the opportunity to go to test pilot school where I learned how to become a flight test engineer There I got to fly in the backseat of many different airplanes Since then I've flown in 40 different types of airplanes I've been 50,000 feet above the ground which is over nine miles I've gone supersonic meaning faster than the speed of sound. I've gotten to test all kinds of awesome systems I'm going to tell you about today So first I wanted to share what it looks like to fly So this video is of me flying in a T6 You can see when you're flying you wear a helmet I'm also wearing a mask that gives me fresh fresh air with oxygen to breathe You can see as I'm flying I look over and I see my shadow flying next to me on the cloud You'll see a rainbow circle around the shadow We call it a sun dog and we're essentially chasing our shadow along clouds. It was an amazing feeling Let's talk a little bit about Edwards Air Force Base It's the home of American flight test and that's where we've had all kinds of records and new airplanes that we've flown You can see that Edwards is located next to a large lake bed and the reason that Edwards is here is because that lake bed makes a very hard Smooth surface that we can land airplanes on We've used it since the 1940s a couple things. I want to highlight is in 1947 was the first time we went faster than the speed of sound in the 60s and 70s We flew the X plane the X 15 that went up into space and went up to Mach 6.7 2 6.7 times faster than the speed of sound in the last couple decades We've flown all the new airplanes including the B2 the F 35 F 22 and all the new things for the Air Force So this year we have the 75th anniversary of supersonic flight and that's because on October 14th 1947 we went faster than the speed of sound for the first time It was done in the Bell X1 aircraft You can see a picture of it here and it went Mach 1.06 about 700 miles per hour. It was done at 43,000 feet Which is about eight miles above the ground There was an engineering team a large engineering team that made this happen One of them was Lawrence D Bell who designed and owned the company of the Bell aircraft There is a NASA NACA at the time scientist John Stack And then the pilot that flew was an Air Force pilot by the name of Chuck Yeager So what is supersonic flight? It's when you go faster than the speed of sound Meaning that the airplane is moving through the air faster than a sound wave can propagate through the air You can visualize what that looks like with these two pictures. These were captured by NASA It's called Schlieren photography and you can see the pressure wave the differential Where the air is compressing as the airplane moves through it This wave as it comes down from the airplane down to the ground is when you can hear a sonic boom So I want to share with you the supersonic pass. It's an event that we do at test pilot school I'm going to show you a video of what that looks like when I got to fly it So how it starts is we have a t38 the little airplane and an f16 Bolt going supersonic faster than the speed of sound The f16 is going to be going a little bit quicker than the t38 and as it approaches The shock wave coming off the back of the t38 will touch the nose of the f16 As f16 moves forward the shock wave off the front of the f16 hits the back of the t38 At this point both of the airplanes start to rock as the wave passes them Next the f16 will pass and the front of the t38 shock wave hits the back of the f16 And finally as f16 clears the back shock wave will hit the front of the t38 So let's take a look and see what that looks like So here you can see the video of me Experiencing a shock wave in the supersonic path I'm in the t38 and you're going to see an f16 coming up on the left hand side of the screen Right there you see the shock wave And so that's how you can feel and experience a shock wave as one airplane passes another So because going supersonic causes a shock wave which can make a supersonic boom We only go supersonic in a couple places and those are right over Edward's Air Force Base We have the Black Mountain supersonic corridor and the Bell X-1 supersonic corridor If you ever come out to Edwards, you might be lucky enough to hear and feel a supersonic boom So as I mentioned now, we have many airplanes that we fly at Edwards We have all the different types of bombers that you can see right along the top We have a c12 which is a cargo airplane We have the trainers of the t38 and then our f16 f22 and f35 fighter aircraft We have unmanned aircraft like the global Hawk meaning that the pilots are sitting on the ground flying the airplane with a mouse and keyboard We have tanker aircraft that carry fuel and give aircraft fuel. They're like a gas station in the sky And we have cargo aircraft like the c17 We also have the new trainer t7 that should be arriving any month now So i'm going to tell you about the automatic air collision avoidance system This is a system that prevents two or more airplanes from hitting each other in the air You can see a photo right here that we took when we were testing the system with two f16s over Edwards Air Force Base So first why auto a-cast? I'm going to show you a video recreation of a mid-air mishap that happened to Edwards Air Force Base in the late 90s In this video you see an f16 flying next to a t38 The f16 pilot saw some birds and didn't want to hit them And so he turned to the left not realizing how close he is to the t38 As he hits the t38 it kills the pilot and the backseater Now this shows what would happen if the automatic air collision avoidance system was on the airplane Still able to turn in but at the last moment the computer takes control and maneuvers the airplane away from the t38 preventing the collision Saving lives So how do you test an automatic collision avoidance system without actually causing a midair? Well, there were two things that we took in the first was we never relied on the system We treated it like a mad scientist Meaning we didn't know if that computer would do the right thing So we never put the airplanes on an actual collision course meaning the real airplanes Were maybe a couple hundred feet apart and then we would trick the computer to think they were on a collision course The other thing is we didn't trust the system We'd put safeguards in the computer called exclusion zones So if an airplane was up into the left It could not turn right and if it was down into the right, it couldn't turn left They weren't allowed to turn into each other Now let me show you what that looks like We created a test card. So on this test card, you can see all the information This is what the flight test engineer looks at in the backseat making sure everything is set We'd have the altitude offset which is faking the computer out thinking they're on a similar altitude We'd have the split which is the actual distance between the two airplanes 200 feet in this case We would have exclusion zones so the airplane on the bottom couldn't go up and the one on the top couldn't go down Now let me show you what that test point looks like So you're going to see on the in the middle an airplane that is up into the left This is their heads up display. You can see we have an exclusion zone So the airplane can't go down to the right You'll also see the chevrons coming together when those touch. That's when the computer takes control The other airplane will be down on the bottom to the right Again when the chevrons come together, that is when the computer will do the automatic maneuver So you can see that was a good test point at the end of it The pilot says that was awesome because we were able to test the system safely and get good results All right now. I want to show you what normal flying looks like between two airplanes So this is a normal three ship rejoin and I want you to see how close two airplanes can get safely You see them coming together In a normal rejoin All right, the last thing I want to show you is where the backseat engineer comes in I want you to first see this top video how dynamic these maneuvers are Remember the pilot is trying to fly to get on condition So you see the pilot turning to the left and looking down at the other airplane as they get close The computer takes control and maneuvers the airplane away Very dynamic, but safe because we make sure we have that altitude split between the two airplanes All right now. I'm going to show you what the pilot is looking at Remember, there's a test card with a bunch of different parameters The pilot is not able to focus on that. He's spending his time looking at the other airplane So as the pilot is doing this maneuver, he's constantly looking over at the other airplane This is where the backseat engineer is able to focus on the parameters And make sure that the altitude split and all the other parameters are set and safe during the maneuver Working together as a team is what makes these test points go well and keeps us safe So some closing thoughts testing at edwards has been a great journey for the last 17 years that I've been out there testing the collision avoidance system has been Challenging because we've had to figure out how to do it safely, but very rewarding I hope you enjoyed learning about it and you're interested in going into engineering