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Hi, and welcome to the Neil
Ashton Podcast.

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In each episode, we explained
some of the fascinating ways

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that science and engineering are
changing the world around us.

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We talked to leading engineers
from elite level sports like

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cycling in Formula One to some
of the world's top academics to

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understand how fluid dynamics,
machine learning, supercomputing

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are bringing in a new era
discovery.

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We also hear some of their life
stories, their career advice,

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the lessons they've learned on
the way that I hope will be

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helpful to you too.
So sit back and enjoy this

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episode.
Hi, and welcome back to the Neil

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Ashton Podcast.
So today's guest is Professor

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Russ Cummings.
He is the director of the

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Hypersonic Vehicle Simulation
Institute as part of the United

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States Air Force Academy and has
had an amazing career over the

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past 40 years.
He turned 70 later this year and

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he's well known for well,
actually many things.

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He has one of the most popular
textbooks, aerodynamics for

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engineers.
There's a new version coming out

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this year which just come out,
which we we talk about briefly.

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But he's he's had this amazing
career where he's gone from

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being, you know, in academia.
He went into industry, he was a

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professor, professor for a long
time.

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He's been key in terms of
collaborations with the rest of

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the world.
Notably, we talk about his links

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with with Oxford.
And I got to, I guess know of

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his work more recently through
the United States Air Force

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Academy and his work in terms of
leading the resurgence, I guess

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of hype of research into
hypersonics, CFD, something that

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is very topical and very
challenging.

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And so we go through his, his
motivations, his early days at,

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at university in California, we
talk about him going into

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industry.
We spend some time dwelling,

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which I really love.
You know, the time at NASA Ames.

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This is a bit of a common theme
in a lot of the people that I

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interview.
They've often been there, some

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of his overlap with some key
figures.

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I will try and post a, a, a
picture if I can on YouTube in

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the, in the, in the comments,
because there was a picture that

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he shared of 50 years of NASA
Ames.

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And I think he was in that photo
on the, on the on the field

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there.
And, and yeah, so he, he

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interacted with a lot of people
with, with Mike Giles, who,

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who's in this season of the of
the podcast, talks about the

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great time coming over to
Oxford.

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Like I said, the, the college
environment, collaborating

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people, the difference in
working habits between the, the

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UK and the US, some funny
stories along that.

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And then towards the latter part
of the episode, we talk more

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about hypersonics in particular
and some of the challenges

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compared to low speed, some of
the cyclical nature of funding.

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And really how I have observed
him to really have changed that

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to some extent and pioneered and
pushed for a renewed focus on

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Hypersonic's research for CFDI.
Got to know him partially

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through that through the, the
program that he runs with the

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DoD High Performance Computing
modernization program, this HVSI

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that we talk about, which is
combining experimental and

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computational research, applied
research to solve some of the

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great challenges of of
hypersonic CFD.

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So we talk a little bit through
that and then we go towards the

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end really advice that he has
for for people and, and he's

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very inspiring figure actually
somebody's very easy to get

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along with.
You see him at, you know, the AI

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AA and conferences like that and
he is really genuinely, I think

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being an A influential person in
in the community, that someone I

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personally, you know, really do
look up to now.

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We should say that because of of
his role, we wanted to make sure

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that there were certain things
that people understand in terms

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of, you know, just his opinion
essentially.

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So I did want to I put a little
note in the YouTube comments

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around what around what can be
said, but I wanted to just read

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out a little bit of AI guess a
disclaimer because we don't want

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to get in trouble.
So basically the disclaimer is

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that the views expressed in this
interview are those of the

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author and do not necessarily
reflect the official policy

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opposition of the United States
Air Force Academy, the Air

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Force, the department of defends
all the US government.

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So it's just his opinion and I
thought it was a very good and

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very interesting opinion and I
hope you find too.

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So please sit back and.
Enjoyed this episode with

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Professor Russ Cummings.
Yeah, well, firstly, thank you

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very much for for coming to
talk.

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You know, your name is
synonymous with CFD and

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aerodynamics.
Everybody knows who you are, but

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I still think maybe not
everybody knows your full sort

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of story and and your opinions
on things.

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So it's.
Yeah, great opportunity to speak

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to you.
So thank you very much.

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And yeah, you've, you've had an
amazing career spanning, you

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know, decades with so many
notable achievements.

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But maybe we could start by
winding back the clock a little

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bit to your early motivations,
aspirations, You know, did you

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always want to be an engineer?
When you're growing up.

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Yeah.
So, well, first, thanks for

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having me Neil.
It's great to see you and it's

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great to have this opportunity.
So the the quick answer to your

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question is did I always want to
be an engineer is no.

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I grew up in Santa Cruz, CA.
Which is a.

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Almost like a resort community
about 70 miles South of San

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Francisco, right on the coast.
So beaches, mountains with

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Redwood forests, wonderful place
to live and grow up.

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And I was taking full advantage
of that.

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I was a very busy kid with
sports, mainly baseball and Boy

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Scouts and church and music and
all kinds of activities, none of

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them specifically about
airplanes.

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And so that that was was not
there and certainly not, you

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know, I wasn't there were kids
in my neighborhood who grew up

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tinkering with cars, making go
karts and things like that.

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That wasn't me.
I, I just wasn't that kid until

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I reached the ripe old age of
12.

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My uncle was a master Sergeant
in the Air Force, and I'm going

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to date myself here now.
He was on his way to serve a

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tour in Vietnam during the
Vietnam War.

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So this is in the late 1960s.
So I'm now you can put it

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together.
How old is this guy?

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I was 12.
He decided on his way, he was

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going to Danang.
On his way there, he was going

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to stop and visit us.
He was he was stationed in Ohio

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and his family was in Ohio near
Columbus.

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And he decided to come see us on
the way for a couple weeks since

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he was going to have to fly, I
think, to Travis Air Force Base,

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which is in the San Francisco
Bay Area.

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And then from Travis to, you
know, eventually to Vietnam.

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So he came to visit and he
started almost immediately going

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down with me to the local hobby
shop and buying models of Air

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Force fighters.
And at that time that was like

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the Century series of fighters.
And then into the F4, It's still

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the F100, the F1O2, the F1 O3,
the F1 O 4, the F one O 5.

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And every day it felt like while
he was there, he would buy a

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model and we would sit on the
the kitchen table at night and

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build those models together.
And he would tell me stories

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about those airplanes.
And it was just like a light

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went off.
I want to do something related

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to airplanes that that has been
there ever since.

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It's interesting.
When I when I worked, my first

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job was at Hughes Aircraft
Company in Los Angeles.

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And we can talk about that more
later, but everybody I worked

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with in the aerodynamic design
department loved airplanes.

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That was the common thread.
It wasn't that I knew how to fix

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engines.
It wasn't that I grew up doing

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one thing or the other.
It was there's something about

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airplanes that I just love.
And that bug hit me when I was

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12 because of my uncle.
And so even though he then

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eventually had to leave, those
airplanes started finding their

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ways onto the ceiling of my
bedroom.

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And every night I would look up
at at them.

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And now my bedroom ceiling was
pretty full of airplanes.

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There were, there were many
airplanes that we'd built models

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for and, and I knew I wanted to
do something related to that.

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Probably initially to be a
pilot, but not completely sure.

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That kind of shifted slowly,
kind of evolved as I went

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through middle school and high
school.

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We called it junior high.
Some places in the US they call

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it middle school.
And then through high school, I

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had some good advice from, from
high school teachers, math and,

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and science teachers who who
told me, well, if you want to be

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a pilot or you want to do
something related to

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engineering, you better be
taking all the math and science

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courses you can.
So I signed up and made sure I

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was enrolled in what we called
college prep.

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So, so the the track that was
going to lead you to go to

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university and then spend time
thinking about where that would

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lead me, which university I
would go to.

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There were many options for that
in California.

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Certainly I also looked out of
state, so places like Purdue and

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the University of Colorado at
Boulder, but primarily so that I

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wouldn't break my parents Piggy
Bank.

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I chose to go to Cal Poly
because it was in state, very

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low tuition and and very, very
affordable.

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It was also a three hour drive
away which I thought was the

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perfect distance.
Not too close.

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If you were closer than that,
your parents could just show up

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for lunch, but if you were
farther than that, it was harder

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to go home on a weekend and do
your laundry.

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Right?
So I I thought 3 hours was

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perfect.
So that's about 3 hours South of

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Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo,
again on the coast in a

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beautiful.
Place.

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And Cal Poly was just the
perfect place to to go.

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Cal Poly's motto is to learn by
doing.

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They're very big on a hands on
education.

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So it was like with every
course, with every topic, there

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were lab experiences, if not
outright full laboratory

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courses.
So you we had a hanger and an

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airstrip on campus at that time.
For example, at one point when I

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was a senior, Burt Rutan flew
one of his aircraft in from

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Mojave and just landed it there
and came and talked to the AI AA

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student branch and then flew out
again.

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So, so it was pretty exciting to
to be there, to be learning

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about aeronautical engineering.
And at that time then the, the

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pilot evolution kind of
concluded and, and I realized I

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want to be an engineer.
That happened sometime in my

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first or second year at the
university, where I shifted from

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I want to be a pilot to I want
to be an engineer.

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I went to school with many.
Kids who became pilots.

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So it that was definitely a
possibility.

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Probably a third of my
graduating class in aeronautical

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engineering at Cal Poly were
became pilots.

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In fact, I just saw some of them
recently and, and now they're,

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they're retired pilots, but
their careers spanned many

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decades of, of first flying for
local regional airliners.

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Many of went back in that
deregulation days, went bankrupt

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and then they got a job at
another one and it went

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bankrupt.
And eventually they, they caught

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on with one that got bought up
by a larger airline, which

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started to happen like in the
1980s.

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And they all eventually became
pilots for American or United or

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Delta, you know, the, the big,
the big US airlines and then

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spent the rest of their career
flying around the world.

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So that certainly was an option.
But the engineering part of it

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was what started to attract me.
And maybe one of the clinchers

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was during the junior year, we
had our first course in

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aerodynamics, which perfect
didn't know.

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That's what I wanted to do.
I was still wasn't sure.

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You know, all these topics,
structures and propulsion and

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aerodynamics and design,
etcetera.

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Which thing are you going to
spend your career doing?

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I, I, I wasn't sure, but I knew
one thing.

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While most of the teachers at
Cal Poly were pretty good, the

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guy who taught us aerodynamics,
it wasn't that he didn't know

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it.
He he knew it.

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He he had.
This philosophical belief that

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it was his responsibility to
make you figure everything out

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and not for him to teach it to
you.

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I, I, I hope when I teach that
it's a little bit of both,

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right?
I, I'm explaining and you're,

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00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:17,680
you're trying to absorb and
learn.

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00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:21,920
He wasn't that way at all.
And so I remember coming out of

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00:15:21,920 --> 00:15:27,280
our classroom one day with these
other students and saying, I

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00:15:27,280 --> 00:15:28,800
could teach this better than
him.

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00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:30,880
And I don't even know what this
matter.

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00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:35,040
I could just read ahead in the
book and and do a better job.

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00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:40,840
And little did I know it was
kind of prophetic that that that

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00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:45,280
I was going to spend my entire
career doing aerodynamics.

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00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:47,800
I just didn't know that at the
time.

236
00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:52,040
So Cal Poly was was a perfect
place for me.

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00:15:53,440 --> 00:16:01,560
I then stayed there and got my
master's degree and then did the

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00:16:01,560 --> 00:16:04,600
worst thing that as I was
growing up that I could ever

239
00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:07,360
imagine doing.
And that was to moving to Los

240
00:16:07,360 --> 00:16:11,920
Angeles to get a job because I I
grew up in in Northern

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00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:14,240
California.
And for those of you in the rest

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00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:18,120
of the world, you might not know
this, but there is a a fairly

243
00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:21,000
intense rivalry between Northern
California and Southern

244
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:24,000
California that plays out in
sports.

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00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:28,640
For example, I grew up a San
Francisco Giants baseball fan.

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00:16:28,920 --> 00:16:32,560
We were trained from a very
young age to hate the Los

247
00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:36,840
Angeles Dodgers and in fact,
forget the, but just the Dodgers

248
00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:39,040
hate anything to do with Los
Angeles.

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00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:45,440
So moving to LA to, to go to
work was almost like a sin.

250
00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:50,480
You just couldn't believe what
people thought of me.

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00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:52,960
What are you doing moving to Los
Angeles?

252
00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:55,960
It's like you're moving to the
enemy's territory.

253
00:16:57,360 --> 00:17:03,600
And so I, I moved to LA and to
start work at Hughes Aircraft

254
00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:05,040
Company.
That was interesting.

255
00:17:05,520 --> 00:17:12,280
When I started at Cal Poly,
everybody, and I mean everybody

256
00:17:12,400 --> 00:17:16,400
told me I was making the biggest
mistake of my life, not because

257
00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:19,040
I was going to Cal Poly, but
because I was majoring in

258
00:17:19,040 --> 00:17:22,480
aeronautical engineering.
And that was because of the

259
00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:26,040
timing.
I started at Cal Poly as a, as a

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00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:31,240
freshman in 1973.
That's the wind down of Vietnam

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00:17:31,240 --> 00:17:36,520
War, the wind down of the
defense industries kind of

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00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:43,520
golden era you could say, and
also a number of other factors.

263
00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:46,440
There was the oil crisis in
1973.

264
00:17:46,840 --> 00:17:52,320
And so oil prices shot up and,
you know, gas prices therefore

265
00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:55,840
shot up.
And so people were just telling

266
00:17:55,840 --> 00:18:02,120
me that I was making the worst
decision of my life in enrolling

267
00:18:02,120 --> 00:18:07,000
in aeronautical engineering.
I, I, I didn't care.

268
00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:08,440
It was the airplane thing,
right?

269
00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:10,200
It didn't matter.
It was the airplane thing.

270
00:18:11,280 --> 00:18:18,240
And so by the time I graduated,
so that's 77, I couldn't have

271
00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:23,240
made a better choice because
nobody was majoring in

272
00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:25,640
aeronautical engineering then,
relatively speaking.

273
00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:31,640
And now by the late 70s, defense
and aerospace industry is

274
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:36,920
ramping back up.
And I literally had people just

275
00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:42,520
throwing job offers at me as I,
as I graduated, I had about nine

276
00:18:42,520 --> 00:18:47,160
job offers from all the
companies you could imagine you

277
00:18:47,160 --> 00:18:51,000
get job offers from, from
government labs, from from the

278
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:55,920
Navy, from the Army, whatever.
I'll never forget the offer I

279
00:18:55,920 --> 00:19:00,920
got from Boeing was to work in
the group doing the Boeing 767

280
00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:04,880
wing loads and flutter, which
that's pretty cool.

281
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:09,960
Right.
Yet I didn't take that job

282
00:19:10,360 --> 00:19:14,560
because of the job offer I got
from Hughes Aircraft Company,

283
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:18,080
which was to be a missile air
dynamicist.

284
00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:24,040
Not for one missile, not for one
part of one missile like the

285
00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:28,200
offer I got from other
companies, like 1 airplane, one

286
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:31,400
part of 1 airplane, one thing
about one part of 1 airplane.

287
00:19:31,800 --> 00:19:34,960
And then you wonder, well, what
happens when that's over and

288
00:19:35,600 --> 00:19:39,440
what happens next?
I wanted to be somewhere where I

289
00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:45,400
was going to learn as as much as
I could about aerodynamics and

290
00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:48,560
more than that, it was the
perfect place.

291
00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:55,440
Hughes was a unique aerospace
defense contractor, to put it

292
00:19:55,920 --> 00:20:00,040
mildly.
Howard Hughes wholly owned the

293
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:05,320
company back in the the 30's,
the 40's, the 50s and then

294
00:20:05,320 --> 00:20:10,120
eventually donated the company
to the Howard Hughes Medical

295
00:20:10,120 --> 00:20:14,720
Institute, which he controlled.
It took the government decades

296
00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:18,680
to prove that that was illegal,
but it didn't matter while while

297
00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:21,320
I was there.
And of course, Howard Hughes had

298
00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:25,560
passed away.
But we were a nonprofit defense

299
00:20:25,560 --> 00:20:28,720
contractor, which that doesn't
make sense.

300
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:35,760
We.
Hughes was known among the other

301
00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:39,600
aerospace companies as the
Country Club of the aerospace

302
00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:42,520
industry.
That wasn't true.

303
00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:47,960
We did not have hot tubs in our
building, as some people

304
00:20:47,960 --> 00:20:52,200
thought, but it was, it was very
flexible.

305
00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:55,880
It was very open.
Hughes had you know, you could.

306
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:58,680
You could sense this from the
people who had been there since

307
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:00,160
the days of Howard.
Hughes.

308
00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:04,680
When it was time to work, you
worked.

309
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:09,000
If that meant you went on a wind
tunnel test in Tallahoma,

310
00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:12,080
Tennessee, out in the middle of
what felt like nowhere at the

311
00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:19,480
time, and had to be there for
weeks, even possibly months, and

312
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:24,240
at times working two or three
shifts a day, you did it.

313
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:30,680
But that also meant when you got
home after that test and you

314
00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:34,640
were exhausted, fine, You know,
you show up.

315
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:38,560
But nobody's going to bug you
about what time you arrived or

316
00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:42,240
what time you left or what you
did at lunch or, or any of that.

317
00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:48,880
So it was a very professional.
He's always got the job done.

318
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:54,160
And, and I, I was really proud I
got hired to work on AMRAM.

319
00:21:54,920 --> 00:22:01,720
So it was the original
development of Amram, did all

320
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:05,360
the wind tunnel testing for
AMRAM, created the aerodynamic

321
00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:11,400
modeling for AMRAM, which was a
completely new thing at the

322
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:14,400
time.
There was a guy there named Yoon

323
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:19,560
O who had developed this
mathematical approach to create

324
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:23,800
a real time aerodynamic model
that could be interrogated by a

325
00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:29,040
sixth off program, for example,
using 4A series and cubic

326
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:34,040
splines and, and, and it was, it
was just magical.

327
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:37,560
It was really amazing.
I applied that to Amram and

328
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:42,240
created the first digital
aerodynamic model for Amram.

329
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:45,320
Before that time, the
aerodynamic model was a binder

330
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:50,040
full of graphs that you handed
to the controls guys.

331
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:55,120
At this point we were handing
them a digital model and that

332
00:22:55,120 --> 00:22:59,200
had never been done before.
So all those things that I hope

333
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:01,800
for when I, when I went to work
at Hughes happened.

334
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:06,600
So, you know, understanding wind
tunnel testing and performance

335
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,960
analysis and aerodynamic model
development and aerodynamics

336
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:16,920
itself.
Our, our, our department, the

337
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:20,440
aerodynamic design department
was only about 50 people.

338
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:25,600
We were working out in the San
Fernando Valley in Canoga Park

339
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:30,800
and that was Missile Systems
Group for Hughes Aircraft

340
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:32,840
Company.
That was about 3000 people that

341
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:36,240
worked there.
So we're doing aerodynamics,

342
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:41,560
propulsion, performance,
stability and control and

343
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:44,560
ordinance in our department.
There was a sister department

344
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:47,120
right next to us that was doing
all the mechanical design.

345
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:51,800
So you'd think, wait a minute,
what's left you guys?

346
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:56,800
Are you 2 departments of a total
of about 100 people seem to be

347
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:03,960
doing 90% of the missile.
Well, the other whatever 2800

348
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,360
people were doing all the
electronics.

349
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,680
So the autopilots and the
seekers and and all of that

350
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:13,520
stuff.
And and it.

351
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:18,080
Took it took the majority of
people who work there to do

352
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:23,160
those things, but that meant was
like, I'm learning about all

353
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,000
kinds of stuff and I loved it,
absolutely loved it.

354
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:33,920
Then then Hughes had by far the
gold standard for educational

355
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:37,040
programs in the aerospace
industry called the Hughes

356
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:41,960
Fellowship, where if you, it was
almost like applying to go to to

357
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:47,440
university, you applied for the
fellowship.

358
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:51,440
And if you were selected, you
could either go full time or

359
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:55,640
part time to either a local or a
distant university.

360
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:59,840
So I had a friend, a really good
friend at Hughes who got chosen

361
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:03,120
to go full time.
He went to MIT and got his PHDI

362
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:10,520
wanted to do the local part time
option and went to the

363
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:12,640
University of Southern
California in the aerospace

364
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:15,640
engineering department and
worked through and and

365
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:20,720
eventually got my PhD.
So so it was a industry applied

366
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:23,760
PhD.
Some of the faculty at USC

367
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,120
didn't like that.
You know, it was like, yo, you

368
00:25:26,120 --> 00:25:27,920
should be doing, you know,
fundamentals.

369
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:32,520
You know, turbulence, which was
a big topic at the time there

370
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,880
the, the department head was
John Laufer, who was a big

371
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,720
turbulence guy.
Most of the faculty were in

372
00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:48,160
turbulence, not all, but I, I
was in this high speed CFD thing

373
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,480
that very few of them understood
at the time.

374
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:55,720
That's another thing that Hughes
gave me the opportunity to do

375
00:25:56,240 --> 00:26:03,160
was essentially being on not the
ground floor of CFD, but almost

376
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:07,400
just behind people like
Jamieson, right, who were on the

377
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:13,600
ground floor and and learn all
of the different computational

378
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:17,320
simulation approaches that
existed.

379
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:21,640
So all the way from semi
empirical codes, which there

380
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:26,200
were many of and still are some,
to supersonic hypersonic

381
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:30,000
arbitrary body program.
That's been around since the 60s

382
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:36,920
and the 70s.
To the initial potential codes

383
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:43,760
using CFD methods and then
eventually Euler codes and Rands

384
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:48,360
codes.
All of those things were just

385
00:26:48,360 --> 00:26:52,440
happening as I was at Hughes and
then also at USC.

386
00:26:53,920 --> 00:27:00,320
So, so it was, it was the
perfect time for that and I just

387
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,600
kind of absorbed as much as I
could.

388
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:07,560
There were lots of really great
and very intelligent people at

389
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:13,120
Hughes and very gracious with
their time and mentoring and,

390
00:27:13,120 --> 00:27:19,360
and I just, I just love that.
So I never regretted going to

391
00:27:19,360 --> 00:27:27,840
Hughes and, and even years later
after I, I left Hughes, I went

392
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:29,680
to Cal Poly as a, as an
academic.

393
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:36,600
I received an AI AA award and
the AI AA president at the time

394
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:41,080
was Malcolm Curry, who was the
president and CEO of Hughes

395
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:47,200
Aircraft Company.
And I was, I was sitting at the

396
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,440
table with him, right, having
lunch.

397
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:52,920
And it turned out that I was
sitting right next to him having

398
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:55,840
lunch.
And here I was a Hughes Fellow

399
00:27:55,840 --> 00:28:01,320
who had worked at Hughes, so
worked for him, who left after

400
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,120
he got his PhD.
There was no requirements in the

401
00:28:04,120 --> 00:28:08,240
fellowship program of, of
staying at the company after you

402
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:11,600
graduated.
Not one minute was required.

403
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:16,200
And I asked him.
So first of all, I told OK I I

404
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:19,800
was at Hughes and went to USC
and got my PhD and now I'm at

405
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:24,440
Cal Poly.
Why did you let me do that?

406
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,600
His answer was fantastic, he
said.

407
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:32,880
That and that that happens
probably to the majority of

408
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:35,200
people who go through the Hughes
Fellowship program.

409
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,760
But if you look at the upper
echelons within Hughes Aircraft

410
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:44,400
Company of the managers and the
directors, they're almost all

411
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:49,480
Hughes fellows.
So we're creating the the future

412
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,520
direction of the company, the
future leaders of the company

413
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:57,120
through the fellowship program.
And then what about the rest of

414
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:58,760
you?
Because what did you say you do?

415
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:03,640
You're a professor at Cal Poly,
teaching undergraduates and

416
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:07,160
graduate students and telling
them how much you love Hughes

417
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:09,440
Aircraft Company.
What's wrong with that?

418
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:11,760
That's a good thing.
Very.

419
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,880
Slow, Yeah, it it was, it was
amazing.

420
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,640
So I really enjoyed that time at
Hughes.

421
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:22,120
I I ended up being there a total
of eight years.

422
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:25,760
After Amram.
I worked on hypersonic IR and D

423
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,720
projects, but then the.
The.

424
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:35,920
Possibility of going to back to
Cal Poly as an academic came up

425
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,120
and I applied for and got that
job.

426
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:45,280
And so I moved back up the coast
to San Luis Obispo and became an

427
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:50,920
academic and started then to
teach that aerodynamics.

428
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:52,440
Course that I had.
Taken as a student.

429
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,880
In fact, many of the faculty who
had been there when I was an

430
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:00,920
undergraduate were still there,
including the guy who had taught

431
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:03,160
me that course.
I'd never told him that story.

432
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:07,080
You know, you're a terrible
teacher, but OK.

433
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:14,000
And I hopefully, I hopefully did
it better.

434
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:21,240
I don't want to say anything bad
about him, but I I hope that I

435
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:26,200
instilled in the students kind
of an enjoyment and a love of

436
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:32,000
learning about aerodynamics
because it's not a simple topic

437
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,360
when when you come as an
engineering student to

438
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:40,360
university, maybe you grew up
tinkering with cars, maybe you

439
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:44,440
grew up doing electronics.
You did not grow up doing fluid

440
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,640
dynamics probably.
And so it's a whole new thing

441
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:52,640
for most students.
And it's something that

442
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:57,480
typically is like you can't see,
you can't hold a wrench and and

443
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:01,720
fix it.
It's it's it's much more

444
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:04,520
obscure.
It's kind of hidden, but that

445
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:06,240
also makes it kind of
interesting.

446
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:11,640
So that was a very long winded
answer, but all those things

447
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:18,400
tied back to my uncle coming as
a master Sergeant and building

448
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:23,880
me those models with me and,
and, and I've been doing it ever

449
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:25,320
since.
Yeah, I know.

450
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:29,080
It's incredible.
And also the it's funny how your

451
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:32,000
life takes you in certain
directions and you know, you

452
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,800
then sometimes come full circle.
I mean, sounds like you always

453
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:42,320
had a, a love for the sort of
Northern California, Santa Cruz,

454
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:44,760
San Obispo area.
I guess that's part of the

455
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:47,320
desire to come back is you'd
sort of spend your time, as you

456
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,600
said, in the place where you
know, the rivalries were and it

457
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,960
was nice to come back.
Did you miss that area?

458
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:55,320
I guess a little bit.
No.

459
00:31:55,320 --> 00:32:01,080
Oh, absolutely.
So I would fly regularly up to

460
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:06,400
San Francisco to see my parents,
friends while I lived in LA.

461
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:11,440
So LA is an additional 3 hour
drive South of San Luis Obispo.

462
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:18,080
So that's a six hour drive from
LA from from Western LA to Santa

463
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:19,480
Cruz.
That's a little bit too much.

464
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,760
So I would fly up.
In fact, San Francisco, Los

465
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:25,160
Angeles corridor is one of the
big busiest flight corridors in

466
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,720
the world.
And so there were lots of

467
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:33,640
flights and I would I would go
up there quite a lot.

468
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:37,120
That does not mean I hated LA
the whole time I was there.

469
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,840
I learned to love it to some, to
some extent.

470
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:44,120
It it's really funny in Los
Angeles when somebody asks you

471
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:50,080
how far is it to that place?
They will answer in time.

472
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:54,440
Not in distance, because
distance is irrelevant.

473
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:57,520
It only matters how long it
takes you to drive there.

474
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:00,080
It does not matter how far away
it is.

475
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:07,320
So, so you get used to a whole
different perspective on life.

476
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:14,040
Certainly it takes a while to
gear up to the the fastness of

477
00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:17,040
the freeway system and and life
in general.

478
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:20,720
It was completely normal for
someone to call up and say, hey,

479
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,200
we're going to Westwood to watch
a movie and not even think

480
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:29,960
that's 30 miles away and will
take me 45 minutes to get there.

481
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:35,120
So that's just normal.
And so perspectives changed, but

482
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:38,360
I was kind of glad to go back
when when I did.

483
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:42,480
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I totally
made that mistake recently.

484
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:47,800
I was in Los Angeles or, you
know, in the area thinking it's

485
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:49,560
Los Angeles.
It's like London, it's the city,

486
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:50,760
you know, you can just get
across.

487
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:54,480
And I had a meeting over in
Agoura Hills and I needed to get

488
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:58,360
over to Orange County where.
Yeah, that's for us.

489
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:02,520
Yeah, I was stuck in a taxi for
like 3 1/2 hours.

490
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,200
Oh, you took a taxi?
Oh my goodness, I thought.

491
00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:07,040
Well, how else do I do it?
I mean.

492
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:10,320
I don't think it was a train.
Yeah, yeah, everybody.

493
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:15,480
That's why everybody drives.
So yeah, I was seeing like, OK,

494
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,040
it's quite a big distance, it's
quite a big area.

495
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:22,080
It's crazy.
It's 100 miles by 100 miles, the

496
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:28,360
LA metropolitan area, and I
worked with people at Hughes who

497
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:31,480
lived so we were in the West San
Fernando Valley, very close to

498
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:36,320
Agoura Hills.
People who lived 2 hour drive in

499
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,080
almost every direction from
where we were.

500
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:44,159
N you couldn't, it couldn't be
like Southwest because that

501
00:34:44,159 --> 00:34:50,760
would be the Pacific Ocean.
WE people who lived all

502
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,679
throughout that metropolitan
area and commuted to work.

503
00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:02,200
I live right next to the the our
location, so I had like a 10

504
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,080
minute drive.
There was no way I was ever

505
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:07,400
going to do that.
People driving for one to two

506
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:09,440
hours.
Each way, each.

507
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,120
Day was insane, but that was
normal.

508
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,960
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's
definitely a cultural thing.

509
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:17,920
I guess you just have to get
used to it just becomes that's

510
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:20,680
why autonomous vehicles makes
complete sense.

511
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:23,920
Or you'd be told to, you know,
jump across.

512
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,040
There's one more step that's
connected to all that.

513
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:35,080
Shortly after I got to Cal Poly
again for the second time, I was

514
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:39,760
started doing research with the
people in NASA Ames Research

515
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:45,480
Center up in the Bay Area.
So and and found myself being

516
00:35:45,720 --> 00:35:51,040
asked to apply to be ANRC
postdoc at NASA Ames.

517
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:55,600
And Cal Poly graciously allowed
me to take leave and go do that.

518
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:58,360
And so I spent two years up at
NASA Ames.

519
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:04,240
I, I call that my the
culmination of my CFD education

520
00:36:04,240 --> 00:36:07,280
to some extent, although it
never stops it.

521
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:11,360
It really took everything I had
been doing up to that point and

522
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:14,600
solidified it when I first got
to Ames.

523
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:19,160
The everybody in the chain of
command, which they that's not a

524
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:23,280
word they use, but I'm at a
military institution now, was a

525
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:28,040
CFD researcher.
I was in the applied CFD branch.

526
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,600
The branch chief was Terry
Holst, who had developed many

527
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:35,640
full potential methods.
The fluid dynamics division

528
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,640
director was Paul Cutler.
He was now overseeing both

529
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:45,040
experimental and computational,
but he was a CFD guy.

530
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:49,760
And the Ames Research Center
director was Bill Balhouse, who

531
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:54,840
also was a CFD researcher.
And then as I walked down the

532
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,320
hall.
As I first got there, the names

533
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:02,640
on the office doors.
Were people that I, all of them

534
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:06,120
were people that I had studied
as, as a graduate student at

535
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:11,640
USCI, had read their papers.
I had, you know, so there were,

536
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:13,440
there were multiple CFD
branches.

537
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:16,760
There was the basic, they just
call it the CFD branch.

538
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,560
That was the branch that Lomax
started.

539
00:37:20,240 --> 00:37:24,320
I had beam and warming and Tom
Pulliam and all.

540
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:29,600
The people developing numerical
methods, Tim Barth, though they

541
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,640
were in that branch, I was in
the applied CFD branch.

542
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:41,200
So that was Terry Holtz, Joe
Stager, Denny Shawsey, Mccroskey

543
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:43,960
Gershian.
It just goes.

544
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,080
On and on and on.
And I was there to do research

545
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:49,960
with Lou Schiff in the High
Angle of Attack research group,

546
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,280
which also had some great people
that I worked with.

547
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,440
There were lots of students
there in the summer.

548
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:02,440
One of the people in our branch
who was around in the summer was

549
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:06,720
a guy named Eugene, too, who was
a intern from UC Berkeley.

550
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:10,240
He was a student at Berkeley.
He's now the NASA Ames Research

551
00:38:10,240 --> 00:38:14,840
Center director.
The little Eugene is no thank

552
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:18,240
Eugene.
And then I started having

553
00:38:18,240 --> 00:38:21,920
graduate students who would come
up with me to do research.

554
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,440
And it's a long list, but the
first one was Ken G and then

555
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,360
Donovan, Mathias, Scott.
Merman, Scott.

556
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:33,760
Merman, Yeah.
Joseph Garcia, It just.

557
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:36,600
Goes on and on and on.
And there are many of them are

558
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,400
still at Ames, in, in, in
Donovan's the head of the NASA

559
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,760
division, which is where the
supercomputers are, which is

560
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,040
where I worked.
Now you were in that building.

561
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,400
Then I was in that building,
yes, building 258.

562
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,120
The the meaning of Nas has
changed over the years.

563
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,760
When I was there, it was
numerical or dynamic simulation

564
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:00,520
and, and that's where I got my
first supercomputer.

565
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:08,080
We when I arrived we had two
grade twos and they were named

566
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:11,880
Navier and Stokes and.
So.

567
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:17,960
Jamison talks about that in his
talk that that connection

568
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:21,520
between the growth of the
computer capability and the

569
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:25,920
growth of the CFD.
So if you go back from the 70s.

570
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:30,840
All the way back to like Merman
and Cole in the early 70s doing

571
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:38,760
transonic small disturbance CFD
where it was essentially 1D and

572
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:45,760
and their results were were just
a graph to then as the computers

573
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,480
grew then you go to two.
D.

574
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:53,240
And to 3D or you go from invisa
to viscous.

575
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:57,960
So, so full potential came along
and oiler methods and rands

576
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,680
methods and then you would apply
it to more and more complicated

577
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:04,800
geometries.
So airfoils and then wings and

578
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:09,520
then full aircraft.
As that capability developed and

579
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:14,840
that's when I was there for, for
a portion of that, I call it

580
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,960
like the, the, the golden age of
CFD at NASA Ames.

581
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:23,360
It was, it was amazing to be
there and to take part in all

582
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:25,760
that.
Yeah, it it's really is.

583
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:32,280
Seems almost everybody I speak
to has some link to that NASA

584
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:36,720
Ames Nas building.
I I like the fact I did not know

585
00:40:36,720 --> 00:40:39,320
that the name the acronym
changed.

586
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:41,800
It did, sorry.
The acronym stayed the same, but

587
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:43,880
the definition.
The the the meaning change,

588
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:48,000
yeah.
But did you, I mean, I guess

589
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,280
notable figures in CFD who I
believe if you were there in the

590
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:56,760
late 80s, did you ever come
across Philippe Spallard?

591
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:58,120
Was he there?
There was that.

592
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:03,040
So he was at Stanford?
There was a really close tie

593
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,400
between NASA Ames and Stanford,
as you might expect.

594
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:07,680
It wasn't very far between the
two.

595
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:12,000
We were at Moffett Field, which
was at the time a, a Naval Air

596
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,640
station.
It was great fun because P

597
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:16,920
threes would be taking off and
landing all the time.

598
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:20,440
And, and so there were always
airplanes to watch.

599
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,600
And then NASA had its own
aircraft.

600
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:25,920
So we'd go out and watch the
launches of the U2, for example,

601
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:30,040
which is quite a unique thing to
watch when it takes off.

602
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:37,600
So, so lots of airplanes and
then lots of people who were

603
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:42,760
grad students at Stanford.
So Bob McCormick was at

604
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:44,320
Stanford.
He had been at Ames.

605
00:41:45,240 --> 00:41:48,440
Joe Steger had been at Stanford.
He was at Ames and then later

606
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:53,560
went to UC Davis.
Just a lot of inner

607
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,600
interbreeding, I guess you could
say, between the two.

608
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:01,440
And so we would go over to
Stanford on a regular basis.

609
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:05,720
For example, NASA had a really
great educational program as

610
00:42:05,720 --> 00:42:08,360
well.
So a lot of the grad students

611
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:11,160
that I brought in from Cal Poly
ended up going to Stanford and

612
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:16,200
getting their PhDs after they
finished their research projects

613
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:23,200
with their master's degrees.
And so that was just a long line

614
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:29,600
of people going that route.
So it, it, it was, it was just,

615
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:35,440
I didn't know it at the time,
but it was like you, you wanted

616
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:38,960
to pinch yourself.
I knew some of it, but you don't

617
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:40,720
know.
There's this whole layer of

618
00:42:40,720 --> 00:42:43,240
senior people who are very
famous and well known.

619
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:49,200
But then there were all those
quote, UN quote, young guys, so

620
00:42:49,200 --> 00:43:00,160
so Stu Rogers and.
Tom-tom, I mean Scott Lawrence

621
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:04,920
doing hypersonic CFD, Tom
Edwards.

622
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:09,720
We not only work together, we.
Played together.

623
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:14,800
So for example, there was a NASA
Ames CFD softball team.

624
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:18,000
Tom Pulliam was on it.
I.

625
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:20,760
Was on it, Stu Rogers, all
these.

626
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:25,160
Guys were on the softball team.
So we socialized as well.

627
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:31,320
There was there was sort of like
at Hughes again, work hard, play

628
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,880
hard was was the name of the
game.

629
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:37,160
We played volleyball every day.
At lunch out on the lawn of

630
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,640
Building 258, weather
permitting.

631
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,680
So there was there was a lot of
fun going on as well.

632
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,880
Many of us were San Francisco
Giants fans, so we'd go up to

633
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:57,440
Giants games up in San Francisco
and, and we, we, we didn't know

634
00:43:57,440 --> 00:43:58,200
who we were.
Yeah.

635
00:43:58,720 --> 00:43:59,920
Yeah.
Yeah.

636
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:04,680
We didn't know I.
Know I didn't know that, that

637
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:08,680
that all these people would
quote UN quote, grow up to

638
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:14,960
become leaders in in CFD for the
rest of their careers.

639
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:18,000
Yeah, it's so nice.
And I, I can't remember if I've

640
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,680
said this before, but I really
appreciate it.

641
00:44:20,720 --> 00:44:25,120
I was at Ames for a very brief
time and Tom Pulliam was very

642
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:30,360
kind and, you know, cycled with
me through Palo Alto to find the

643
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:31,840
place.
And, you know, there was that.

644
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:36,840
I think maybe he epitomized that
work hard, play hard mindset.

645
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:40,080
He was always such a gentleman
and a very, yeah, just

646
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:44,480
California cool.
Tom was great.

647
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:52,240
At some point a few years after
I was there, he got a major NASA

648
00:44:52,240 --> 00:44:54,600
award, not an Ames award, but a
NASA award.

649
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,080
And their award ceremony was
black tie.

650
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:02,240
You had to wear what you would
call a dinner jacket, we call a

651
00:45:02,240 --> 00:45:06,000
tuxedo.
And he got told over and over

652
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:08,040
and over again, you will wear.
A tuxedo.

653
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,240
So what does he do?
He shows up at the award

654
00:45:11,240 --> 00:45:14,200
ceremony wearing a tuxedo and
tennis shoes.

655
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:18,760
There was always that part of
Tom that was like, I don't care.

656
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:22,880
I will find a way to rebel.
You just better hope that it's

657
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:27,520
not too bad.
Yeah, that's that is funny.

658
00:45:28,720 --> 00:45:32,280
So one of the things I would, so
then you essentially we're an

659
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:34,160
academic, but an applied
academic.

660
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,080
You were interested in solving,
you know, real engineering

661
00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:38,280
problems.
Absolutely.

662
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,800
You know, with CFD, one thing
that, and I guess it's how I

663
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:45,320
maybe got to know you a little
bit was the the Oxford

664
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:46,880
connection.
How did that come?

665
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:51,080
About yeah, yeah.
So I had been at Ames, late 80s.

666
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:54,440
I had grad students there all
the way through the 90s.

667
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:58,600
But I had my first sabbatical
coming up.

668
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:02,320
Being at Ames as a postdoc was
not a sabbatical.

669
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:09,040
I was just on a leave.
And so I had started to look

670
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:12,480
around many years before.
What were some good

671
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:14,120
opportunities for doing a
sabbatical?

672
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:18,960
I really wanted it to be.
Outside the US if possible and

673
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:22,040
and contacted quite a few
people.

674
00:46:23,240 --> 00:46:28,720
Not just in in the UK, but but
it various places around the

675
00:46:28,720 --> 00:46:33,400
world.
And one of those places was with

676
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:38,640
the Oxford University computing
lab, which was headed up at the

677
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:45,320
time by Bill Morton and included
Mike Giles among many other

678
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:46,840
people.
Ian Sobey was there.

679
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:53,920
They had a very vibrant
numerical methods group, a

680
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:58,760
numerical analysis group that
did CFD, especially Mike Giles.

681
00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:02,560
It was interesting.
There were two parts to the

682
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:07,160
computing lab at the time.
There was the parallel computing

683
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:09,480
group and then the numerical
analysis group.

684
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:12,040
The CFD was in numerical
analysis.

685
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:16,280
The parallel computing were the
computer scientists that that

686
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:22,680
organization, the computing lab
eventually split into two

687
00:47:22,720 --> 00:47:27,000
separate organizations.
The The computer scientists

688
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:30,560
became the Oxford Computer
Science Department, which is one

689
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,280
of the premier computer science
departments in the world.

690
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:38,280
And the Numerical Analysis Group
became a group within the Maths

691
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:45,000
Institute, which has since moved
to very nice location in Oxford

692
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:49,680
with, with fantastic they were,
they were in a pretty crummy old

693
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:53,680
building when when I was there,
but they're in a wonderful place

694
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:58,560
now.
So Mike Giles was had a CFD

695
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:02,840
group in collaboration with
Rolls Royce at the time,

696
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:10,120
developing codes and
applications.

697
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:19,480
For both Euler and RANS Within 4
Rolls Royce and again I found

698
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:23,640
myself in a place where people
worked hard and played hard.

699
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:26,200
Although when I first got there
there was some culture shock.

700
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,360
I'd been going to England since
I was a teenager, so there was

701
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:33,800
no general culture shock, but
there was a workplace culture

702
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:38,520
shock in that there was this
very structured work day.

703
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:45,520
You started at 9 and at 10:30
there was it.

704
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:50,120
Coffee break and it wasn't
optional.

705
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:53,920
If you sat there, they would
come get you and.

706
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:57,240
Say.
Come on down to the break room,

707
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:01,640
to the tea room and get your
biscuit and have some coffee or

708
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:02,600
tea.
So English.

709
00:49:02,720 --> 00:49:06,400
Then you had to go all right,
and that lasted about 1/2 an

710
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:09,600
hour.
And then so from 11 to about

711
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:15,720
half 12 or one, you'd work some
more and then it was lunch.

712
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,840
We had a great kind of
tradition.

713
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:25,640
We would try to take the CFD
guys together for lunch to our

714
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:30,080
colleges, the colleges we're at.
So we would experience the

715
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:32,560
different colleges.
So for example, one of the guys

716
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:38,400
was at was at was at Katz, which
is a very modern college by

717
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:42,400
Oxford standards.
And So what was what?

718
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:45,680
Was it like being a grad student
there at Saint Catherine's

719
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:48,560
compared to I was at St.
John's?

720
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:56,240
What huge difference?
But then a lot of of hard.

721
00:49:56,240 --> 00:49:57,720
Work and great things getting
done.

722
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:00,840
But my point during the work day
was well, then there was an

723
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,720
afternoon tea break as well.
And I felt like when I first got

724
00:50:03,720 --> 00:50:06,320
there, how does anybody get
anything done?

725
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:10,920
You you're constantly taking
breaks throughout the day.

726
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:17,520
And then I realized first during
the breaks, while we weren't

727
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:19,600
officially working, we were
working.

728
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:24,080
That's when people's
frustrations would come out.

729
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:28,840
I've got this thing and it's not
working, you know, And

730
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:33,800
invariably somebody else there
would say, oh, I know how to fix

731
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:38,320
that.
So you got work done even though

732
00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:44,760
we were having this social event
called a tea break and and that

733
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:47,000
that just continued the whole
time I was there.

734
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:55,360
So I came for 1/2 year
sabbatical in 1995, came back

735
00:50:55,360 --> 00:51:00,000
the summers of 96 and 97.
I learned that from Gilstrang.

736
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:04,440
Gilstrang was a constant visitor
to the numerical analysis group.

737
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:09,760
He of course, very famous
numerical methods professor at

738
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:15,400
MIT who only recently retired.
He kept teaching well into his

739
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:22,160
80s and and he taught me that it
was very enjoyable to spend your

740
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:25,480
summer in Oxford and.
That no matter where you worked

741
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:30,920
during this the regular part of
the academic calendar, you might

742
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:34,800
want to find a way to be at
Oxford at the summer and and I

743
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:40,000
have taken his advice I I
skipping to the present time.

744
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:43,960
I'm going there in just a few
days, no longer with the

745
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:48,880
numerical analysis group, but
with the hypersonics team there.

746
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:53,520
I was there last summer for
probably six weeks.

747
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:57,720
I'll be there this summer for
about four weeks and hopefully

748
00:51:57,720 --> 00:52:01,120
that continues.
But anyway, back to Mike Giles.

749
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:05,680
Mike was wonderful.
He had, he was, he was English,

750
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:10,280
but he'd gone to MIT to get his
PhD.

751
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:15,080
He had stayed there and worked
on on coding and and

752
00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:20,080
aerodynamics for for many years.
Brought that back with him to

753
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:25,680
Oxford, had this vibrant
research group while I was there

754
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:29,600
and then later after that.
Then he started to go off into

755
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:37,240
computational finance, but also
big time proponent of GPUs from

756
00:52:37,240 --> 00:52:40,720
from the very beginning.
From the very beginning.

757
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:42,520
So.
If you go on his website,

758
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:46,920
there's all kinds of information
that he had developed about

759
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:51,560
GPU's, how to use them, how to
understand how they work, You

760
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,320
know, it's all just freely
available.

761
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:59,240
He he just posted everything.
And so Mike and I have kept in

762
00:52:59,240 --> 00:53:01,440
touch off and on through the
years.

763
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:05,520
He recently.
Became the professor of

764
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:09,400
numerical analysis in the Mass
Institute, which meant he got

765
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:13,560
moved to Balliol College that's
Bill Morton's old position at at

766
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:18,920
Balliol and was named a fellow
of the Royal Society just about

767
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:23,040
a a month or two ago when their
announcements came out so

768
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:24,720
Mike's.
Still.

769
00:53:24,720 --> 00:53:30,600
There and heading up all
numerical analysis in the Mass

770
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:34,360
Institute and doing wonderful,
wonderful things.

771
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:39,600
Yeah, I can.
Just very jealous.

772
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:42,200
And also I think it's amazing
time that you had those, you

773
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:44,120
know, the 90s and the Oxford
colleges.

774
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:46,640
I mean, now people make movies
about this, don't they?

775
00:53:46,640 --> 00:53:47,920
You know that.
Exactly.

776
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:50,160
It's like an American thing,
isn't It's quite popular.

777
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:53,000
American is coming to England
for the summer and you lived it.

778
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:55,520
You had that?
That friend of mine who went to

779
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:58,640
MIT to get his PhD when we were
at Hughes came to visit while I

780
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:02,720
was there and said this is your
graduate experience, Graduate

781
00:54:02,720 --> 00:54:06,440
School experience, because I had
been kind of part time at USC,

782
00:54:07,560 --> 00:54:09,200
he said.
This is your real graduate

783
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:13,320
student experience.
The the MCR, the Middle Common

784
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:17,200
Room graduate students at St.
John's adopted me even though I

785
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:19,320
wasn't.
There as a student, I was there

786
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:24,760
as a visiting academic, so the
distance from the computing lab

787
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:28,680
to my room at St.
John's was about a 5 minute

788
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:30,640
walk.
You know, great commute.

789
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:36,720
Invariably I would leave the lab
and be walking back to my room

790
00:54:36,720 --> 00:54:42,280
and somebody from the MCR at St.
John's would invite me to

791
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:45,840
something that night because I
would just see them as I was

792
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:48,800
walking.
Maybe I'd go to my pigeonhole in

793
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:54,080
the college, you know, front
rooms and, and check my mail and

794
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:59,000
I would see somebody and there
was a BBQ or there was we're

795
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,080
going out for a bike ride or
whatever it was.

796
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:09,640
I probably in the, those initial
six months only spent 4-5

797
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:16,280
evenings alone at Oxford.
Most of the nights something he

798
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:21,160
came up and, and just got
grabbed and, and brought into

799
00:55:21,240 --> 00:55:26,280
that, that lifestyle at Oxford.
So you're right.

800
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:28,680
It, it, it was like you were in
a movie.

801
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:33,600
I was there, like I said last
summer and I noticed something

802
00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:36,480
that was kind of tragic.
I was texting my wife who I

803
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:38,360
happened to meet at St.
John's as well.

804
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:45,720
Had to go to England to meet
somebody from Kansas that that I

805
00:55:45,720 --> 00:55:49,640
didn't see the the grad students
hanging out doing things in the

806
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:53,560
college.
And she texted back one word,

807
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:58,040
cell phones.
And she was completely right

808
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:02,680
that there.
None of those things that

809
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:05,200
happened to me when I was there
were going on.

810
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:11,440
I even talked to some of the MCR
members and asked do you guys do

811
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:13,880
activities together?
Do you go, you know, like we

812
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:17,120
would go to Stratford and go see
a Shakespeare play or we'd go to

813
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:21,080
London and see a play or we did
things all the time.

814
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:25,440
I remember going to Bournemouth
once for a bike ride, which is

815
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:28,360
kind of crazy and fun and all
kinds of things.

816
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:33,640
None of those things were
happening last year because

817
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:40,960
everyone's friends relations
were through their phone and not

818
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:42,880
through the person I live next
to.

819
00:56:43,920 --> 00:56:50,200
And that's, that's sad because
we both in the lab and in the

820
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:55,360
college were, were very close
and, and I really enjoyed that.

821
00:56:56,240 --> 00:56:59,960
Yeah, that is, it is, it really
is incredible.

822
00:56:59,960 --> 00:57:03,440
And I guess it having that I'm a
strong believer in this,

823
00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:07,320
experiencing the different
cultures of academia and

824
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:10,640
industry and different academia
and different industry gives you

825
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:14,520
a more rounded, you know,
appreciation, which I, I assume

826
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:17,600
has been very useful for you as
you collaborate with different

827
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:20,640
groups around the world.
I didn't realize it at the time,

828
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:24,520
but I was just collecting
relationships and I when I look

829
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:26,960
back through my career, that's
what I remember.

830
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:30,520
And, and I still have those
relationships and I still

831
00:57:30,520 --> 00:57:33,600
interact with those people all
the way back to my Hughes days.

832
00:57:33,600 --> 00:57:39,520
And even, you know, as an
undergrad at Cal Poly by by by

833
00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:42,320
taking advantage of those
situations.

834
00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:45,080
It it it was.
It was.

835
00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:48,120
Just kind of magical.
I I, I loved it.

836
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:50,080
Yeah, yeah.
That's incredible.

837
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:53,840
And of course you're learning
about CFD and, and we were doing

838
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:56,480
drag extraction from CFD
solutions.

839
00:57:56,480 --> 00:57:58,160
That's what Mike and I were
working on.

840
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:02,440
You know, could you predict drag
using a RANS code?

841
00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:05,440
How well could you do it?
And so we were.

842
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:07,720
We were working on that while I
was there.

843
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:11,400
That was something Rolls Royce
was interested in as well.

844
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:16,320
And so, so that those are the
kinds of things that that I was

845
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:18,760
doing when I, when I was there
in the 90s.

846
00:58:19,200 --> 00:58:24,080
Now I'm there working primarily
in hypersonics, but that that.

847
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:28,400
The another whole.
Tale of how that happened but

848
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:34,440
certainly certainly felt like I
was just constantly learning and

849
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:39,840
growing in in because I was
taking advantages of these

850
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:45,320
opportunities and and not not
everybody does that later in

851
00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:49,080
life I I spent three years
living in London so eventually I

852
00:58:49,080 --> 00:58:51,200
left Cal Poly and went to the
Air Force Academy.

853
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:55,680
One of the things that came out
of that was I got to do an

854
00:58:55,680 --> 00:58:58,720
exchange to the AFOSR office in
London.

855
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:02,920
I spent three years as a tech
director and then through that

856
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:08,560
met academics all over Europe
and the UK and Australia I was

857
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:10,720
funding hypersonics research
for.

858
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:17,280
For Europe and Australia and so
got in on the sort of the ground

859
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:21,400
floor of what was going on at
Oxford with Matt Mcgilvray and

860
00:59:21,400 --> 00:59:28,240
his team and and we were one of
the first organizations to fund.

861
00:59:28,520 --> 00:59:31,640
Research with with Matt and his
hypersonics group.

862
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:37,000
There's a famous story at the
AFOSR office, AFOSR office in

863
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:38,920
London.
It's called a org, the European

864
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:41,080
Office of Aerospace Research and
Development.

865
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:47,000
We've actually in that office
over the years, funded a few

866
00:59:47,360 --> 00:59:54,360
Nobel Prize winners.
And the great story is there was

867
00:59:54,360 --> 01:00:01,080
a program officer back around
20. 10 or so 2009 maybe who

868
01:00:01,080 --> 01:00:04,760
funded A fledgling research
project at the University of

869
01:00:04,760 --> 01:00:07,880
Manchester about this weird
thing called graphene.

870
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:13,160
And the guys who had that
project, and this was one of

871
01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:17,920
their first funded projects for
their graphene project for their

872
01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:23,360
for their lab ended up winning
the Nobel Prize in I think it

873
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:28,680
was in chemistry.
And invited that program officer

874
01:00:28,680 --> 01:00:32,880
to the Nobel ceremony because he
was the first one.

875
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:35,800
Now they've got this massive
building at the University of

876
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:41,280
Manchester and 10s of millions
of dollars of research going on.

877
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:45,440
But they still remembered back.
That's how we started.

878
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:51,560
And I think Matt Mcgilvray and
Peter Ireland and the people at

879
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:53,760
the Thermofluids Institute at
Oxford.

880
01:00:54,160 --> 01:01:00,520
Felt that way about AFRL and
AFOSR and, and, and not just me,

881
01:01:00,640 --> 01:01:05,680
but others as well, having faith
in them and supporting them and

882
01:01:05,680 --> 01:01:08,440
helping them to get started as
they were putting together

883
01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:12,600
tunnels and, and developing
capabilities and CFD, etcetera.

884
01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:19,880
So that was that was a wonderful
way to to make that connection

885
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:23,160
while I was at officially
working as an academic at the

886
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:26,600
Air Force Academy.
Yeah, Well, one of the things we

887
01:01:26,600 --> 01:01:29,360
want to pivot to a little bit
was, you know, was around

888
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:32,880
hypersonics.
But as a link to that, what was

889
01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:35,280
how did you start to get into
that?

890
01:01:35,280 --> 01:01:38,720
What made you then go to the Air
Force and, and, and today, I

891
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:40,160
guess mainly focus on
hypersonics.

892
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:41,720
How did how did that transition
come about?

893
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:46,800
So, so it was there back at
Hughes, so way, way back in the

894
01:01:46,800 --> 01:01:52,520
80s with the R&D projects they
worked on, but there were no

895
01:01:52,520 --> 01:01:56,400
tools like we have today back
then.

896
01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:01,520
So I was actually using the
supersonic hypersonic arbitrary

897
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:06,680
Broady program to analyze
aerodynamic shapes, which is

898
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:10,200
just surface impact methods.
So Newtonian modified Newtonian

899
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:15,640
tangent wedge tangent cone
methods applied to geometries.

900
01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:21,880
But then when I went back to Cal
Poly, there was very little

901
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:26,160
hypersonics going on.
And that that leads to an

902
01:02:26,160 --> 01:02:28,240
important if, if you don't
understand this about

903
01:02:28,240 --> 01:02:30,680
hypersonics, especially in the
US, you don't understand it.

904
01:02:31,560 --> 01:02:35,720
That hypersonics has been very
cyclical since the 50s and the

905
01:02:35,720 --> 01:02:39,640
60's.
The funding, if you graph it

906
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:44,680
versus time is a sine wave and
the period of that sine wave is

907
01:02:44,680 --> 01:02:49,120
about 10 to 12 years.
And that's big projects like

908
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:52,720
what the space shuttle coming
and going or Apollo coming and

909
01:02:52,720 --> 01:02:56,240
going or the National Aerospace
plane coming and going.

910
01:02:56,480 --> 01:03:02,800
And in between those major peaks
were these massive valleys and,

911
01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:05,240
and that meant that.
You were I.

912
01:03:05,480 --> 01:03:07,480
Mean I I always say you couldn't
plan it.

913
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:11,920
Better to ruin progress than to
have 10 to 12 years between the

914
01:03:11,920 --> 01:03:17,040
peaks, because that meant
halfway between everybody who

915
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:22,680
had done that peak was gone, or
almost everybody the people

916
01:03:22,680 --> 01:03:25,080
left.
Maybe with a bad taste in her

917
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:29,480
mouth about hypersonics.
The facilities fell into

918
01:03:29,480 --> 01:03:34,480
disrepair perhaps and or were
mothballed or even in many cases

919
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:38,960
destroyed.
That there's a report from 1963

920
01:03:38,960 --> 01:03:43,120
that there were 78 hypersonic
wind tunnel facilities in the

921
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:50,040
United States at that time.
By about 2015, there were about

922
01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:58,280
3578 to 35, and it's those
cycles that led to that.

923
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:03,400
There were many hypersonic
tunnels in aerospace companies

924
01:04:03,880 --> 01:04:09,320
back in the 60s and there was
only like one or two left by

925
01:04:09,320 --> 01:04:14,440
2015 or so.
So so those peaks and valleys

926
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:20,720
really Hanford progress in in
hypersonics in general.

927
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:27,080
Certainly hypersonic CFD because
it it wasn't a thing, right?

928
01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:30,720
The space shuttle was designed
with no CFD.

929
01:04:32,200 --> 01:04:37,800
None.
Now, people later on did lots of

930
01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:41,720
CFD for return to flight and,
and different things like that,

931
01:04:42,800 --> 01:04:50,960
but there wasn't any the, the,
the things that you expect to

932
01:04:50,960 --> 01:04:55,280
happen over time and were
happening for CFD weren't

933
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:59,680
happening for hypersonic CFD and
hypersonics in general.

934
01:05:02,800 --> 01:05:05,280
I, I like to this, one of the
things I, you know, I love to

935
01:05:05,280 --> 01:05:08,640
talk about this history to my
students because I think, you

936
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:12,880
know, when you go out there in
your careers, you're, you're

937
01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:16,480
going to wonder why is
hypersonic so far behind every

938
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:19,680
other part of aerospace and
aerodynamics and CFD?

939
01:05:20,800 --> 01:05:25,480
In 1992, Bill Clinton ran for
president, and his campaign

940
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:28,400
manager was this very colorful
guy named James Carville.

941
01:05:28,400 --> 01:05:29,760
I don't know if you've heard of
him.

942
01:05:30,000 --> 01:05:33,160
If you look him up on YouTube,
he has this thick Southern

943
01:05:33,160 --> 01:05:38,000
accent and and you begin to
wonder about his intelligence.

944
01:05:38,000 --> 01:05:41,440
Perhaps that's a common bias in
the United States.

945
01:05:42,680 --> 01:05:46,480
But he's a smart guy, but he's
also a little wild and wacky.

946
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:50,760
During the campaign, he put up
on the campaign headquarters

947
01:05:50,760 --> 01:05:54,440
wall a sign that said it's the
economy, stupid.

948
01:05:55,680 --> 01:06:00,360
He did that to remind everybody
who worked there and Clinton,

949
01:06:01,400 --> 01:06:05,280
stay to this point.
If you don't understand this and

950
01:06:05,280 --> 01:06:06,880
stick to this, we're going to
lose.

951
01:06:07,080 --> 01:06:09,160
If you stick to this, we have a
chance to win.

952
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:14,640
So what I tell my students is
I'm going to use that phrase,

953
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:17,560
but just change one word.
Hypersonics.

954
01:06:17,720 --> 01:06:22,000
It's the heat, stupid.
If you don't understand that,

955
01:06:22,600 --> 01:06:24,440
then you don't understand
hypersonics.

956
01:06:24,840 --> 01:06:29,320
And everything about the
challenges in hypersonics and

957
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:32,480
that has to do with experimental
testing, with flight testing,

958
01:06:32,760 --> 01:06:38,840
and with CFD revolves around
that huge heat that has to be

959
01:06:38,840 --> 01:06:42,440
dealt with on the vehicles.
I like to explain that to my

960
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:45,200
students just by using, you
know, going to the normal shock

961
01:06:45,200 --> 01:06:48,040
tables.
And if you're a Mach 2, look up

962
01:06:48,040 --> 01:06:51,920
teat, you know, the temperature
change across a normal shock and

963
01:06:51,920 --> 01:06:54,280
it's, you know, OK, it's, it's
going up, but it's not going up

964
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:57,160
that much.
But if you go up to Mach 5 and

965
01:06:57,160 --> 01:07:00,840
Mach 10 and Mach 15, it goes
through the roof.

966
01:07:01,160 --> 01:07:08,040
It, it's exponential and that's
all contained within the kinetic

967
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:14,960
energy of the free stream.
That's huge amount of energy in

968
01:07:14,960 --> 01:07:19,960
the free stream that then
dissipates over a shock in a

969
01:07:19,960 --> 01:07:25,240
very small distance to what you
go from Mach 20 to Mach .5

970
01:07:25,880 --> 01:07:29,680
within the thickness of a shock.
What happened to all that

971
01:07:29,680 --> 01:07:33,360
kinetic energy?
It went into heat.

972
01:07:33,360 --> 01:07:36,240
It went into pressure work and
and other things as well, but it

973
01:07:36,240 --> 01:07:39,680
went into heat.
And where did that heat go?

974
01:07:40,640 --> 01:07:42,440
It's trying to go into your
vehicle.

975
01:07:43,480 --> 01:07:48,200
It's also trying to change the
the chemistry of the air going

976
01:07:48,200 --> 01:07:52,280
around the vehicle.
It's affecting everything.

977
01:07:52,680 --> 01:07:55,680
It's absolutely affecting
everything.

978
01:07:56,080 --> 01:07:59,960
And so you need to understand
that.

979
01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:06,400
And that along with the cyclical
nature of funding hypersonics,

980
01:08:06,840 --> 01:08:10,760
essentially meant hypersonic CFD
just wasn't a thing.

981
01:08:11,200 --> 01:08:16,479
There were very few people doing
that when the national aerospace

982
01:08:16,479 --> 01:08:20,040
plane came along.
For example, the national

983
01:08:20,040 --> 01:08:22,520
aerospace plane started in the
early 80s.

984
01:08:22,520 --> 01:08:28,319
It was cancelled in 92.
I, I keep with me this report on

985
01:08:28,319 --> 01:08:32,800
the Defense Science Board report
on the National Aerospace plane

986
01:08:32,800 --> 01:08:41,200
program because it has an
interesting list of issues that

987
01:08:41,200 --> 01:08:45,359
needed to be invested in and
improved before we would start a

988
01:08:45,359 --> 01:08:49,160
new national aerospace plane.
So this is kind of like what

989
01:08:49,160 --> 01:08:50,760
happened.
What happened here?

990
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:56,520
Why did we go from a DARPA
design in the early 80s that was

991
01:08:56,520 --> 01:09:02,560
like 50,000 lbs and had 22.5%
payload which is pretty good for

992
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:04,840
hypersonics.
Not good for subsonics, but

993
01:09:04,840 --> 01:09:11,000
pretty good for hypersonics to a
half £1,000,000 nearly vehicle

994
01:09:11,000 --> 01:09:19,120
in 92.
The X30, it's right there that

995
01:09:19,120 --> 01:09:25,240
had no payload, 0 payload
because of the heat they

996
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:27,720
couldn't close the design.
It just kept getting bigger and

997
01:09:27,720 --> 01:09:31,240
bigger and bigger.
So the the Defense Science Board

998
01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:35,279
kind of post mortem of the
national Aerospace plane called

999
01:09:35,279 --> 01:09:38,840
out a list of things that needed
to be invested in in order to

1000
01:09:38,840 --> 01:09:43,200
improve the next hypersonic
vehicle development.

1001
01:09:44,560 --> 01:09:48,399
A lot of the things on that list
are just like you, you would be

1002
01:09:48,399 --> 01:09:52,399
able to guess one of them was,
well, you need to better define

1003
01:09:52,399 --> 01:09:56,800
what the application of this
vehicle is, not just some

1004
01:09:56,800 --> 01:09:59,480
esoteric, let's do it, what is
it for?

1005
01:09:59,480 --> 01:10:03,240
What's it going to do.
But then they had a long list of

1006
01:10:03,280 --> 01:10:05,000
of things that needed to be
improved.

1007
01:10:05,000 --> 01:10:08,960
So structures, materials, those
make sense because dealing with

1008
01:10:08,960 --> 01:10:12,800
the heat propulsion system, so.
It was an air breather, you

1009
01:10:12,800 --> 01:10:17,800
needed a scramjet and they never
got a working scramjet design

1010
01:10:18,800 --> 01:10:20,840
for NASP really.
And they had.

1011
01:10:20,840 --> 01:10:23,800
Concepts and but, but it just
never got there.

1012
01:10:24,520 --> 01:10:26,880
Aerodynamics, OK,
aerothermodynamics.

1013
01:10:28,440 --> 01:10:34,160
And then really, really strange
on this bulleted list of things

1014
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:41,440
that needed to be invested in
was CFD was like which one of

1015
01:10:41,440 --> 01:10:43,080
these things is different than
the others?

1016
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:47,040
You know structures and
materials and aerodynamics and

1017
01:10:47,040 --> 01:10:52,400
propulsion are all typical
aircraft disciplines, right?

1018
01:10:53,200 --> 01:10:56,320
CFD is not that.
It is.

1019
01:10:56,440 --> 01:11:00,960
It is something you use to do
predictions with and

1020
01:11:00,960 --> 01:11:06,920
simulations.
And they went like nuts on CFD.

1021
01:11:06,920 --> 01:11:10,280
Wasn't ready for prime time
hypersonic CFD.

1022
01:11:10,440 --> 01:11:13,480
Why?
OK, they they just made the list

1023
01:11:14,320 --> 01:11:18,960
Turbulence models.
Almost all turbulence models

1024
01:11:18,960 --> 01:11:21,720
were developed using low speed
wind tunnel data.

1025
01:11:22,360 --> 01:11:27,880
Yeah.
Not subsonic wind tunnel like

1026
01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:32,840
water tunnel data or you know,
10 meters per second wind tunnel

1027
01:11:32,840 --> 01:11:36,640
data.
And then and then what happens?

1028
01:11:36,640 --> 01:11:41,080
You put that in ACFD code that's
being developed for subsonic or

1029
01:11:41,080 --> 01:11:45,120
transonic aircraft and it's
like, well, can I use it at Mach

1030
01:11:45,120 --> 01:11:48,200
6?
Yeah, you can put in Mach 6 and

1031
01:11:48,200 --> 01:11:55,720
some altitude and get an answer.
But, and I heard Graham Candler

1032
01:11:55,720 --> 01:11:59,480
say this once, I'm sure the
people who developed those

1033
01:11:59,480 --> 01:12:03,440
turbulence models never in their
wildest dreams thought someone

1034
01:12:03,440 --> 01:12:06,680
would use it at hypersonic
speeds, but that's what

1035
01:12:06,680 --> 01:12:10,760
happened, perhaps with a
compressibility correction, but

1036
01:12:10,760 --> 01:12:15,240
that's it.
And then transition prediction,

1037
01:12:15,400 --> 01:12:18,280
you could say on the list of
things that killed mass

1038
01:12:18,320 --> 01:12:21,040
transition was probably up there
with them.

1039
01:12:22,480 --> 01:12:27,320
The inability to predict
transition on a flight vehicle

1040
01:12:27,680 --> 01:12:32,040
was almost notorious.
Dennis Bushnell and NASA Langley

1041
01:12:32,440 --> 01:12:37,560
used to say we've been, you
know, singularly unsuccessful at

1042
01:12:37,560 --> 01:12:40,760
predicting transition on just
about everything that's flown

1043
01:12:40,760 --> 01:12:42,280
hypersonically and then, he
added.

1044
01:12:42,400 --> 01:12:44,280
Or even supersonically.
Yeah.

1045
01:12:44,960 --> 01:12:49,320
The X15 was an example where the
wind tunnel test said the flow

1046
01:12:49,320 --> 01:12:52,880
is going to be mostly laminar
while they're flying and they

1047
01:12:52,880 --> 01:12:55,720
come back and of course the flow
was turbulent.

1048
01:12:56,160 --> 01:13:01,800
Well, that's OK that that if you
just think about transition and

1049
01:13:01,800 --> 01:13:06,320
turbulence from a subsonic
perspective, it's like, OK, you

1050
01:13:06,320 --> 01:13:10,520
have more drag.
Yes, you also have 3 to 8 times

1051
01:13:10,520 --> 01:13:13,360
more heat transfer in a
turbulent boundary layer at

1052
01:13:13,360 --> 01:13:17,800
hypersonic speeds than in a
laminar boundary layer.

1053
01:13:19,080 --> 01:13:21,360
That can kill your design right
there.

1054
01:13:22,120 --> 01:13:26,080
Because what are you going to do
as an engineer if I don't know,

1055
01:13:26,960 --> 01:13:29,800
is it laminar or turbulent?
And if it's turbulent, it's 3 to

1056
01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:32,120
8 times more heat transfer,
which means I have to have the

1057
01:13:32,120 --> 01:13:37,720
thermal protection system, maybe
active systems that are on board

1058
01:13:38,000 --> 01:13:43,720
and doing work like on the X51,
you know, cooling systems,

1059
01:13:43,720 --> 01:13:47,360
etcetera.
That could mean I have no

1060
01:13:47,360 --> 01:13:49,000
payload.
And that's what happened to

1061
01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:57,920
NASP, no payload.
And so, so transition was a big

1062
01:13:57,920 --> 01:14:01,600
deal and there there were
others.

1063
01:14:01,600 --> 01:14:04,280
So then you talk to talk about
the thermal chemistry and its

1064
01:14:04,280 --> 01:14:07,600
impact on on turbulence.
So as you go through that normal

1065
01:14:07,600 --> 01:14:13,360
shock, the temperatures can go
up to easily 4000 Kelvin, 6000

1066
01:14:13,360 --> 01:14:16,520
Kelvin, 10,000 Kelvin depending
on the Mach number.

1067
01:14:17,720 --> 01:14:23,640
And now you have chemical
reactions taking place due.

1068
01:14:23,880 --> 01:14:26,080
To.
You know, dissociation and

1069
01:14:26,080 --> 01:14:28,200
ionization and all kinds of
things.

1070
01:14:29,080 --> 01:14:35,000
Where's that modeled in your CFD
code, your transonic CFD code?

1071
01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:39,400
It's not, it's not there.
You all at best have what?

1072
01:14:39,520 --> 01:14:44,480
OK, I choose perfect gas law.
OK, and, and, and I choose

1073
01:14:44,480 --> 01:14:47,920
gamma, and that's it.
That is it.

1074
01:14:48,440 --> 01:14:55,040
So there's all these traps for
using that CFD code that was

1075
01:14:55,040 --> 01:14:59,400
developed for subsonic transonic
flow, but using it in hypersonic

1076
01:14:59,400 --> 01:15:05,320
speeds, it doesn't usually work.
It just doesn't.

1077
01:15:05,960 --> 01:15:10,600
And as a designer, then you
become conservative.

1078
01:15:11,360 --> 01:15:14,720
Engineers aren't typically
conservative when it comes to

1079
01:15:14,720 --> 01:15:19,320
design choices and uncertainty.
And if you don't know you're

1080
01:15:19,320 --> 01:15:22,960
going to assume worst case,
well, worst case assumption can

1081
01:15:22,960 --> 01:15:25,560
kill your design.
That is assuming that the flow

1082
01:15:25,560 --> 01:15:29,360
is fully turbulent along the
entire length of the vehicle and

1083
01:15:29,360 --> 01:15:32,920
now you're in deep trouble.
So.

1084
01:15:32,920 --> 01:15:37,000
So those things make hypersonic
CFD difficult.

1085
01:15:37,120 --> 01:15:40,760
They also make hypersonic ground
testing difficult.

1086
01:15:40,760 --> 01:15:44,120
They also make hypersonic flight
testing difficult.

1087
01:15:45,560 --> 01:15:48,440
I mean, I loved, I was at Oxford
last summer and they were

1088
01:15:48,440 --> 01:15:51,760
showing one of the SpaceX
launches and one of the grad

1089
01:15:51,760 --> 01:15:54,160
students said, what's what's
happening right there and go?

1090
01:15:54,160 --> 01:15:58,600
That's the fin burning off and
they're all cheering because

1091
01:15:58,600 --> 01:16:00,200
they don't even know what's
happening.

1092
01:16:01,880 --> 01:16:06,520
And and.
It turned out to be true, so so

1093
01:16:06,680 --> 01:16:08,960
it impacts everything you do in
hypersonic.

1094
01:16:09,280 --> 01:16:13,440
So ground test facilities
typically to get that high of

1095
01:16:13,440 --> 01:16:16,600
Mach number and that kinetic
energy can only run for

1096
01:16:16,600 --> 01:16:18,720
milliseconds or hundreds of
milliseconds.

1097
01:16:20,960 --> 01:16:26,560
The flight tests have all kinds
of issues often to do with the

1098
01:16:26,560 --> 01:16:32,360
heat that also is like it rolls
back on itself because now I

1099
01:16:32,360 --> 01:16:38,360
don't have validation data that
I I know is good for flight test

1100
01:16:38,360 --> 01:16:43,240
vehicles.
So, so you know what's?

1101
01:16:43,240 --> 01:16:46,760
Going on when I want to validate
my code and I don't even know

1102
01:16:47,640 --> 01:16:52,800
what the truth is.
I don't even know, you know, did

1103
01:16:52,800 --> 01:16:55,920
that tweak I just made to the
turbulence model specifically

1104
01:16:55,920 --> 01:17:00,160
for hypersonics, for example,
make it better or worse?

1105
01:17:00,200 --> 01:17:05,680
I don't even know.
And so, so all of that Hanford,

1106
01:17:05,680 --> 01:17:09,400
the development of hypersonic
CFD, while there was lots of

1107
01:17:09,400 --> 01:17:14,760
effort being placed in transonic
CFD, in fact, I like to say

1108
01:17:14,760 --> 01:17:18,080
that.
If you look at the typical

1109
01:17:18,080 --> 01:17:21,960
numerical methods developed.
In the 70s and the 80s, so now

1110
01:17:21,960 --> 01:17:25,360
we're talking about Jameson and,
and all these guys that I worked

1111
01:17:25,360 --> 01:17:29,040
with at Ames, whether they
thought about it explicitly or

1112
01:17:29,040 --> 01:17:34,480
not, were developed for a normal
shock in a, in a cell, right.

1113
01:17:35,200 --> 01:17:38,480
And so the upwinding approaches
and, you know, Merman and Cole's

1114
01:17:38,480 --> 01:17:42,320
just, you know, having the, the
switch between elliptic and, and

1115
01:17:42,320 --> 01:17:48,520
hyperbolic and, and all of that
was based on this picture in

1116
01:17:48,520 --> 01:17:50,240
your mind that that's what
you're dealing with.

1117
01:17:50,600 --> 01:17:53,160
Now I'm going hypersonic.
The shock's not normal.

1118
01:17:53,480 --> 01:17:56,120
Maybe a little portion of it is,
it's highly swept.

1119
01:17:57,640 --> 01:18:02,680
Is that transonic numerical
method working for my hypersonic

1120
01:18:03,880 --> 01:18:08,200
flight conditions?
Does it know what to do when

1121
01:18:08,200 --> 01:18:13,160
the, the shock is like swept
back at A, at a, you know, a

1122
01:18:13,160 --> 01:18:19,120
Mach angle of 25°?
So, so it's not just the

1123
01:18:19,120 --> 01:18:23,080
physical models, it's not just
the chemistry, it's not just

1124
01:18:23,280 --> 01:18:26,560
turbulence and transition, it's
even the numerical methods.

1125
01:18:26,560 --> 01:18:30,680
There has been no investment
whatsoever in developing

1126
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:35,280
hypersonic numerical methods for
CFD codes 0.

1127
01:18:37,400 --> 01:18:41,520
And part of the problem there
has just been, you know,

1128
01:18:41,520 --> 01:18:43,440
everybody kind of pointing at
everybody.

1129
01:18:43,440 --> 01:18:46,440
Else.
So well you know, the DoD says

1130
01:18:46,440 --> 01:18:51,200
well that's the company's job.
There is no appetite in an

1131
01:18:51,200 --> 01:18:55,160
aerospace company these days to
spend money developing ACFD

1132
01:18:55,160 --> 01:18:59,760
code.
This is 0 because why they did

1133
01:18:59,760 --> 01:19:04,080
that back in the 70s and the 80s
and developed in house codes

1134
01:19:04,080 --> 01:19:07,480
like Boeing and Lockheed Martin
that they've been improving and

1135
01:19:07,480 --> 01:19:13,600
using ever since for a fighter
or a cargo airplane.

1136
01:19:14,840 --> 01:19:19,800
Now you use it on a re entry
vehicle and it doesn't work.

1137
01:19:20,600 --> 01:19:24,720
How do you deal with that?
They're not going to spend money

1138
01:19:24,720 --> 01:19:29,080
developing hypersonic CFD.
The government doesn't spend

1139
01:19:29,080 --> 01:19:34,040
money doing that.
Very little physical modeling

1140
01:19:34,760 --> 01:19:39,800
research is done.
Lots of basic science research

1141
01:19:39,920 --> 01:19:44,960
in turbulence and transition for
hypersonics, almost none of that

1142
01:19:44,960 --> 01:19:48,720
going applied right where you.
Take what you've learned and

1143
01:19:48,720 --> 01:19:53,520
then make a model out of it.
Not not only wasn't that done,

1144
01:19:53,640 --> 01:19:56,680
nobody even funded to ask those
questions.

1145
01:19:56,920 --> 01:19:59,680
What would I have to do to make
that happen?

1146
01:19:59,840 --> 01:20:04,320
Just wasn't happening.
So I guess maybe this Tees up

1147
01:20:04,320 --> 01:20:05,960
then the question.
Sort of does.

1148
01:20:08,360 --> 01:20:12,480
I like what you did there, the
HVSI program, maybe you know

1149
01:20:12,520 --> 01:20:16,040
Hypersonic Vehicle Simulation
Institute, maybe you could

1150
01:20:16,040 --> 01:20:18,120
explain a little bit about that
program, What that?

1151
01:20:18,520 --> 01:20:20,320
Right.
So after Cal Poly, I came to the

1152
01:20:20,320 --> 01:20:22,640
Air Force Academy.
They had a great group of people

1153
01:20:22,640 --> 01:20:25,680
doing CFD.
Scott Morton, Doug Blake, Jim

1154
01:20:25,680 --> 01:20:29,720
Forsythe.
I joined with them doing

1155
01:20:29,720 --> 01:20:32,600
massively separated flows, so
high angle of attack flows,

1156
01:20:32,600 --> 01:20:34,520
which I had done when I was at
Ames.

1157
01:20:35,200 --> 01:20:38,880
So that was a nice connection.
What then pushed me into

1158
01:20:38,880 --> 01:20:43,040
hypersonics was the discipline
director for aerodynamics at the

1159
01:20:43,040 --> 01:20:47,400
Air Force Academy at the time
was John Burton, and John Burton

1160
01:20:47,400 --> 01:20:49,680
had spent his career working in
hypersonics.

1161
01:20:50,440 --> 01:20:55,080
He asked me to become the
co-author of his textbook called

1162
01:20:55,080 --> 01:20:59,120
Aerodynamics for Engineers.
By the way, just just by

1163
01:20:59,120 --> 01:21:03,360
accident, the 7th edition
published by Cambridge Press

1164
01:21:03,360 --> 01:21:07,800
just came out this week.
I just got my copies last Friday

1165
01:21:08,880 --> 01:21:11,160
and.
And and so that was not a

1166
01:21:11,160 --> 01:21:11,920
shameless.
Plug.

1167
01:21:11,920 --> 01:21:15,680
It was just, I'm kind of proud
about that because it takes

1168
01:21:15,680 --> 01:21:18,520
years.
It takes years and it's just

1169
01:21:18,520 --> 01:21:22,400
kind of magical.
John Burton not only asked me to

1170
01:21:22,400 --> 01:21:26,720
help him with that, but also was
heavily involved in doing

1171
01:21:26,720 --> 01:21:30,040
hypersonic research at the
Academy, both experimental and

1172
01:21:30,040 --> 01:21:35,200
then he was not.
ACFD guy but asked me to be his

1173
01:21:35,200 --> 01:21:39,240
connection to, well, what could?
What could different simulation

1174
01:21:39,240 --> 01:21:41,720
approaches do for these
projects?

1175
01:21:41,720 --> 01:21:45,240
I'm working on and he went all
the way back to the Apollo days

1176
01:21:45,680 --> 01:21:50,920
at at NASA Johnson.
And he worked for also Sandia

1177
01:21:51,160 --> 01:21:53,680
and then was a professor for
many years at the University of

1178
01:21:53,680 --> 01:21:56,400
Texas at Austin before he came
to the Air Force Academy.

1179
01:21:56,720 --> 01:22:01,440
He wrote one of the two.
Probably best used textbooks on

1180
01:22:01,440 --> 01:22:05,600
hypersonic aerothermodynamics
along with John Anderson has a

1181
01:22:05,600 --> 01:22:10,800
book and John Burton have has a
book and so that's what started

1182
01:22:10,800 --> 01:22:13,480
to get me ramped up doing
hypersonics.

1183
01:22:14,400 --> 01:22:18,120
Like I said, I went to London
for three years working as a

1184
01:22:18,120 --> 01:22:22,640
tech director there, and that
experience, so being a program

1185
01:22:22,640 --> 01:22:26,320
officer as well, funding
research at universities in

1186
01:22:26,320 --> 01:22:32,200
hypersonics, led me when I
returned, to be asked to start

1187
01:22:32,880 --> 01:22:36,440
the Hypersonic Vehicle
Simulation Institute for the DoD

1188
01:22:36,440 --> 01:22:38,760
High Performance Computing
Modernization Program.

1189
01:22:39,600 --> 01:22:44,360
They fund the development of
institutes realize that

1190
01:22:44,360 --> 01:22:48,400
hypersonic CFD was going to be
an important thing and that it

1191
01:22:48,400 --> 01:22:53,720
was not being invested in.
And so they wanted me to

1192
01:22:54,160 --> 01:22:58,760
determine what needed to be
invested in, you know, which,

1193
01:22:59,000 --> 01:23:03,120
which led me to spend many hours
on telephone interviews with

1194
01:23:03,120 --> 01:23:09,120
people, the aerospace companies
and government labs and, and

1195
01:23:09,120 --> 01:23:13,960
find out where were these
shortfalls, what were these

1196
01:23:13,960 --> 01:23:17,800
issues and what do you need to,
to do a better job.

1197
01:23:18,520 --> 01:23:22,640
I was kind of surprised that
none of that had taken place.

1198
01:23:23,280 --> 01:23:27,400
Nobody had ever asked those
questions before, at least not

1199
01:23:27,400 --> 01:23:31,680
that I knew of.
Just I kept pinching myself

1200
01:23:31,680 --> 01:23:35,360
saying how can I be the only
person asking these questions

1201
01:23:35,360 --> 01:23:38,040
about hypersonic CFD?
Certainly people like Graham

1202
01:23:38,040 --> 01:23:43,280
Candler and and and and his gang
at Minnesota and other places

1203
01:23:43,280 --> 01:23:48,320
knew that this was a problem.
But who was going to fund

1204
01:23:48,440 --> 01:23:51,880
research in that area?
Applied research, not basic

1205
01:23:51,880 --> 01:23:58,240
science research and so started
funding research and physical

1206
01:23:58,240 --> 01:24:01,920
model development and also
validation data.

1207
01:24:01,960 --> 01:24:04,000
So the collection of data that
could be used.

1208
01:24:04,280 --> 01:24:06,960
So for example at Oxford,
they're doing a double cone

1209
01:24:06,960 --> 01:24:08,320
experiment.
They've been doing it for quite

1210
01:24:08,320 --> 01:24:10,400
a few years.
There's, they've got another

1211
01:24:10,400 --> 01:24:17,640
test coming up in, in T5 in, in
QLD, they're all over in

1212
01:24:17,640 --> 01:24:19,560
Australia right now for a
conference.

1213
01:24:20,040 --> 01:24:24,360
And, and so just so many
questions.

1214
01:24:24,360 --> 01:24:30,520
I mean, that came out of the
like 2013, 2014 AI, AA

1215
01:24:30,720 --> 01:24:35,600
hypersonic CFD blind code study
at Kubrick.

1216
01:24:35,600 --> 01:24:40,080
They did some tests on a variety
of basic geometries like the

1217
01:24:40,080 --> 01:24:45,880
Hall cylinder and a double cone
and a cone flare and asked for

1218
01:24:45,880 --> 01:24:49,640
people to submit their
simulations and then at an AI AA

1219
01:24:49,640 --> 01:24:53,600
meeting in 2014 showed the
results and they were terrible.

1220
01:24:54,160 --> 01:24:59,880
They were terrible.
Not for all cases, not for all

1221
01:24:59,880 --> 01:25:03,400
geometries, but in general it
only led to more questions than

1222
01:25:03,400 --> 01:25:10,840
answers that did not transcend
into funding for trying to

1223
01:25:10,840 --> 01:25:14,760
accomplish any of those things.
So I felt like that's what HVSI

1224
01:25:14,800 --> 01:25:19,800
was starting to do.
Since then, ONR Eric Marineau

1225
01:25:19,800 --> 01:25:24,360
has picked up on that and he's
he's really become kind of a a

1226
01:25:24,360 --> 01:25:28,680
great supporter of that.
AFOSR not so much because they

1227
01:25:28,680 --> 01:25:32,960
only fund basic science.
So developing, you know,

1228
01:25:33,040 --> 01:25:37,680
turbulence models is not in
their ballpark, but but it's in

1229
01:25:37,680 --> 01:25:40,800
somebody's ballpark.
I just couldn't find out who,

1230
01:25:41,480 --> 01:25:47,640
and so that led to quite a few
years of trying to not only

1231
01:25:47,640 --> 01:25:51,000
determine what the issues were,
but then trying to fund applied

1232
01:25:51,000 --> 01:25:52,720
research.
That could help solve them.

1233
01:25:54,880 --> 01:25:58,120
And that is across, I guess
academia.

1234
01:25:58,480 --> 01:26:00,640
How about industry?
What's the involvement with

1235
01:26:00,640 --> 01:26:03,360
industry?
Are they Co funding or

1236
01:26:03,640 --> 01:26:05,640
sponsoring or is this?
Yeah.

1237
01:26:05,640 --> 01:26:07,400
How, how do you?
Yeah.

1238
01:26:08,240 --> 01:26:10,920
So, so first they were the
people I was asking the

1239
01:26:10,920 --> 01:26:15,800
questions to, but then kind of a
fun thing happened almost by

1240
01:26:15,800 --> 01:26:21,960
accident as I would fund these
projects, people from industry

1241
01:26:21,960 --> 01:26:27,120
asked if they could participate,
not paid, but just as

1242
01:26:27,120 --> 01:26:31,360
consultants on on these
university projects.

1243
01:26:31,720 --> 01:26:35,960
So for example, I had two
transition modeling projects,

1244
01:26:35,960 --> 01:26:40,600
one at the University of Arizona
and New Mexico State and one at

1245
01:26:40,600 --> 01:26:46,040
the University of Tennessee late
later Penn State and Texas A&M.

1246
01:26:46,800 --> 01:26:52,440
And each of those projects had
industry partners who were

1247
01:26:53,000 --> 01:26:57,200
giving advice, looking at what
what are they doing and how's it

1248
01:26:57,200 --> 01:26:59,480
working and, and maybe we can
use this.

1249
01:26:59,480 --> 01:27:05,280
So Raytheon at the University of
Arizona and Lockheed Martin with

1250
01:27:06,000 --> 01:27:11,400
the one at Tennessee and, and
just being there side by side to

1251
01:27:11,400 --> 01:27:13,920
be involved.
But again, they're not going to

1252
01:27:13,920 --> 01:27:18,600
get any money to do that on
their own when when they get a

1253
01:27:18,600 --> 01:27:24,560
program like a new hypersonic
vehicle, there is 0 money for

1254
01:27:24,600 --> 01:27:28,120
developing tool tool
capabilities.

1255
01:27:28,840 --> 01:27:34,800
It's all about getting answers
and, and using whatever you have

1256
01:27:34,920 --> 01:27:37,640
and, and trying to get to where
you need it to get.

1257
01:27:38,320 --> 01:27:41,440
And so they really realized the
importance of that.

1258
01:27:41,440 --> 01:27:47,800
I had somebody at Raytheon tell
me this is the first time when

1259
01:27:47,800 --> 01:27:49,960
the government came to me and
asked me questions.

1260
01:27:50,400 --> 01:27:54,280
And then I realized they
actually listened and did what I

1261
01:27:54,280 --> 01:27:58,880
recommended for them to do.
And so that was kind of a, a

1262
01:27:58,880 --> 01:28:03,040
proud moment that that they
realized we, we were trying to

1263
01:28:03,040 --> 01:28:07,160
do what needed to be done.
Now this, you mentioned the

1264
01:28:07,160 --> 01:28:11,200
context of the high performance
computing modernization program,

1265
01:28:11,960 --> 01:28:16,440
one of the questions I guess is
on most people's lips broader

1266
01:28:16,440 --> 01:28:18,280
than just hypersonics.
But I want to ask you about the

1267
01:28:18,280 --> 01:28:23,040
hypersonics is the role of AI.
As you say decades turbulence

1268
01:28:23,040 --> 01:28:26,440
models and transition models
were done using empirical or

1269
01:28:26,680 --> 01:28:32,840
semi empirical methods.
Are you optimistic, Skeptical.

1270
01:28:33,520 --> 01:28:34,360
Yeah.
What's your?

1271
01:28:34,720 --> 01:28:37,720
It's a hot topic and very
opinionated I find, so I'm

1272
01:28:37,720 --> 01:28:39,160
interested to see your view on
this.

1273
01:28:39,920 --> 01:28:49,000
So AI and or machine learning
for some aerodynamic, you know,

1274
01:28:49,080 --> 01:28:52,320
increase in our capabilities and
our knowledge I think will work.

1275
01:28:53,560 --> 01:28:56,600
I'm not so positive about it
working well for hypersonics.

1276
01:28:56,880 --> 01:29:00,000
And that backs up to what I said
about the lack of validation

1277
01:29:00,000 --> 01:29:03,400
data.
AI and machine learning have to

1278
01:29:03,400 --> 01:29:09,280
have information, right?
They have to know, hopefully

1279
01:29:09,280 --> 01:29:13,080
mostly within some error bar
what the truth is.

1280
01:29:14,200 --> 01:29:19,520
And we don't necessarily know
that and, or the things that we

1281
01:29:19,520 --> 01:29:22,480
have learned historically might
be classified.

1282
01:29:23,080 --> 01:29:27,880
And so they can't have it.
And so the first question I

1283
01:29:27,880 --> 01:29:32,080
asked when somebody recommends
doing some kind of AI machine

1284
01:29:32,080 --> 01:29:38,240
learning, hypersonic physical
model development is where are

1285
01:29:38,240 --> 01:29:44,320
you going to get your data?
How, how is, how is that process

1286
01:29:44,320 --> 01:29:49,320
going to work when your data is
very slim or next to none?

1287
01:29:49,640 --> 01:29:53,040
And I mean, Steve Schneider at
Purdue can probably go through

1288
01:29:53,040 --> 01:29:55,440
every hypersonic wind tunnel
test that's ever been done and

1289
01:29:55,440 --> 01:29:58,480
tell you all the problems that
happened in that test or with

1290
01:29:58,480 --> 01:30:02,800
that data, especially if it
relates to transition.

1291
01:30:04,080 --> 01:30:09,600
There are there are always
questions about the tests and

1292
01:30:09,600 --> 01:30:14,560
flight tests too.
And so how is it going to work?

1293
01:30:15,480 --> 01:30:20,720
Because it doesn't know what the
truth is or even what

1294
01:30:20,720 --> 01:30:24,600
approximate truth is.
So I'm kind of skeptical.

1295
01:30:24,920 --> 01:30:30,160
I think you could use DNS
simulations of hypersonic flows

1296
01:30:30,160 --> 01:30:34,040
to maybe help that.
There's some, some great people

1297
01:30:34,040 --> 01:30:40,440
working on that, certainly
Graham Candler and others around

1298
01:30:40,480 --> 01:30:44,680
around the world.
So you could say, well, let's

1299
01:30:44,680 --> 01:30:49,480
let's start simple, some simple
flows, some very expensive.

1300
01:30:49,480 --> 01:30:52,240
And Graham Candler likes to say,
you give me a billion grid

1301
01:30:52,240 --> 01:30:56,720
points and the computers to
solve my code on and I can tell

1302
01:30:56,720 --> 01:30:58,680
you what's happening.
And I believe him.

1303
01:30:59,240 --> 01:31:04,760
That's just not helpful for a
design approach other than

1304
01:31:04,760 --> 01:31:06,840
answering a specific question
here or there.

1305
01:31:06,840 --> 01:31:10,360
And that can absolutely happen
in the development of a of a of

1306
01:31:10,640 --> 01:31:15,520
a program or a vehicle, but it's
not how you're going to do the

1307
01:31:15,520 --> 01:31:19,800
design.
You can't afford that as the way

1308
01:31:19,800 --> 01:31:23,160
to predict your aerodynamic
database, for example, for a

1309
01:31:23,160 --> 01:31:25,840
vehicle.
So I'm sceptical.

1310
01:31:26,320 --> 01:31:27,480
Yeah.
No, that's interesting.

1311
01:31:27,480 --> 01:31:29,600
And I, I think I understand
where you're coming from.

1312
01:31:29,600 --> 01:31:34,080
I guess the analogy with the
lower speed is that over the

1313
01:31:34,080 --> 01:31:36,480
past decades there has been
quite a lot of data.

1314
01:31:36,480 --> 01:31:38,280
There's no issue of
classification.

1315
01:31:38,680 --> 01:31:43,600
There is still an issue of data
being truly public, but there is

1316
01:31:43,600 --> 01:31:45,320
an ability to generate that
data.

1317
01:31:45,320 --> 01:31:49,280
And crucially, the experimental
data and the flight data is

1318
01:31:49,280 --> 01:31:53,840
relatively mature.
I guess with hypersonics with

1319
01:31:53,840 --> 01:31:57,840
maybe too early on, like you
know, if CFD and experiments get

1320
01:31:57,840 --> 01:31:59,960
better and better, but then I
guess you still have the

1321
01:31:59,960 --> 01:32:02,400
classification issue and it's
still a niche, a more niche

1322
01:32:02,400 --> 01:32:04,680
problem than.
Low speed flow.

1323
01:32:05,200 --> 01:32:08,600
Right.
So it it, it, it has lots of

1324
01:32:08,600 --> 01:32:13,400
limitations that may make that
something that's not ready for

1325
01:32:13,400 --> 01:32:15,920
prime time for for quite a few
years.

1326
01:32:16,440 --> 01:32:19,760
Yeah, Yeah.
Well, you know, it's good for

1327
01:32:19,760 --> 01:32:21,600
people in CFD jobs, right?
That keeps them.

1328
01:32:21,600 --> 01:32:23,840
That's right.
If there was a solution with AI

1329
01:32:23,840 --> 01:32:27,360
right now, then we'd all retire.
When I first went to work at

1330
01:32:27,360 --> 01:32:31,040
Hughes, I, I at one point, maybe
during my first year and the

1331
01:32:31,040 --> 01:32:34,840
entire first year, I felt like I
was an idiot because everything

1332
01:32:34,840 --> 01:32:38,760
I did was wrong.
Somebody said don't ever

1333
01:32:38,760 --> 01:32:42,480
complain about how hard this is
because turbulence is going to

1334
01:32:42,480 --> 01:32:46,080
pay your your paycheck for the
rest of your life.

1335
01:32:47,280 --> 01:32:50,000
And that's certainly been true.
Yeah, yeah.

1336
01:32:50,000 --> 01:32:52,680
Well, Pete, you know this, that
people often in experimental

1337
01:32:52,680 --> 01:32:55,640
testing, and we'll say for the
past 40 years, CFD has claimed

1338
01:32:55,640 --> 01:32:58,400
to replace wind tunnels and
they're still, they're still

1339
01:32:58,400 --> 01:33:00,280
going.
So I am a.

1340
01:33:00,280 --> 01:33:03,760
Strong believer in the the
opposite opinion.

1341
01:33:04,680 --> 01:33:10,440
I think CFD and wind tunnels and
flight tests are should be in a

1342
01:33:10,720 --> 01:33:14,520
symbiotic relationship that they
they can inform each other.

1343
01:33:14,840 --> 01:33:19,480
You can learn about things from
the test using CFDI.

1344
01:33:19,480 --> 01:33:20,840
Think they should be done in
parallel?

1345
01:33:20,840 --> 01:33:23,520
I don't think it should be.
We ran an experiment and now we

1346
01:33:23,520 --> 01:33:25,000
have to figure out why it didn't
work.

1347
01:33:25,760 --> 01:33:28,840
So let's use some CFD.
No, you should be designing the

1348
01:33:28,840 --> 01:33:31,600
test with CFD.
You should be doing the

1349
01:33:31,600 --> 01:33:36,320
simulations at the same time
you're running the the code.

1350
01:33:36,360 --> 01:33:40,480
I mean, I had a great experience
when I was at Ames working on

1351
01:33:40,480 --> 01:33:44,320
the high angle tech research
vehicle, the F18 flying at very

1352
01:33:44,320 --> 01:33:46,800
high angles of attack.
They were doing flight tests and

1353
01:33:46,800 --> 01:33:51,000
wind tunnel tests for that.
So we had all three legs of the,

1354
01:33:52,200 --> 01:33:58,960
of the, of the three leg stool
and I did CFD simulations of

1355
01:33:58,960 --> 01:34:03,440
what the pressure distribution
would be on the F18 for a

1356
01:34:03,440 --> 01:34:07,800
certain flight condition and
sent it down to NASA Dryden.

1357
01:34:08,800 --> 01:34:13,560
And then they did the flight
tests and sent back the

1358
01:34:13,560 --> 01:34:17,600
comparisons.
And I, I was, I was in, I was

1359
01:34:17,600 --> 01:34:18,640
like.
Wow.

1360
01:34:19,080 --> 01:34:25,480
I mean very few grid points at
the time, cells whatever

1361
01:34:26,800 --> 01:34:28,840
relatively speaking compared to
today.

1362
01:34:29,760 --> 01:34:33,960
Yet we were pretty much nailing
those, especially a high angle

1363
01:34:33,960 --> 01:34:37,520
of attack where you get flow
separation and vortices and

1364
01:34:37,520 --> 01:34:42,080
everything else with Rands codes
using algebraic turbulence

1365
01:34:42,080 --> 01:34:45,480
models with corrections for a
high angle of attack that the

1366
01:34:45,480 --> 01:34:49,280
Ghanian shift did.
We were were doing a really good

1367
01:34:49,280 --> 01:34:54,040
job and I had predicted that
before the the flight test that

1368
01:34:54,040 --> 01:34:58,800
was that was a great feeling, a
true prediction and and then

1369
01:34:58,800 --> 01:35:03,400
comparison with flight test data
that that doesn't happen, but I

1370
01:35:03,400 --> 01:35:05,160
think it should be happening all
the time.

1371
01:35:05,520 --> 01:35:08,080
Well, someone told me this and I
can't remember who it was now,

1372
01:35:08,080 --> 01:35:10,760
but they were commenting that
part of the issue is maybe

1373
01:35:12,560 --> 01:35:17,320
previously when CFT was less
mature for for whatever reasons,

1374
01:35:18,000 --> 01:35:21,640
people would often do an
experiment and CFT, they they

1375
01:35:21,640 --> 01:35:24,960
would be doing both.
So they would naturally where

1376
01:35:24,960 --> 01:35:29,000
now because the fields have
grown and expanded, very few

1377
01:35:29,000 --> 01:35:32,160
people do the CFD and the
experiment themselves, do they?

1378
01:35:32,160 --> 01:35:36,000
They tend to be siloed into an
experimental person or CFD, so

1379
01:35:36,000 --> 01:35:39,520
maybe that makes them separate
if you know what I mean.

1380
01:35:39,960 --> 01:35:43,160
So I think that's a mistake.
I think when you're doing

1381
01:35:43,160 --> 01:35:46,160
experiments, you should have,
maybe they're not in your

1382
01:35:46,160 --> 01:35:49,800
research group, but they're in
your organization or your lab.

1383
01:35:50,240 --> 01:35:52,920
People doing CFD.
They're doing that at Oxford.

1384
01:35:53,200 --> 01:35:59,120
So you've got Matt and Luca
Demara running the CFD group

1385
01:35:59,800 --> 01:36:01,520
now.
He came from Imperial College

1386
01:36:01,520 --> 01:36:03,840
and is at Oxford doing a great
job.

1387
01:36:04,600 --> 01:36:08,480
Matt's done marvels with the
experimental facilities.

1388
01:36:08,480 --> 01:36:14,240
He's got a whole army, not only
of, of regular graduate

1389
01:36:14,240 --> 01:36:17,040
students, but we send, we send
graduates from the Air Force

1390
01:36:17,040 --> 01:36:20,440
Academy there on a regular basis
to get their degrees, their

1391
01:36:20,440 --> 01:36:26,240
graduate degrees.
And so I think that's essential.

1392
01:36:26,400 --> 01:36:29,520
I mean, that's one of the things
I'll be working on this summer

1393
01:36:29,800 --> 01:36:39,240
is comparing for a reflected
shock to the conditions with CFD

1394
01:36:39,240 --> 01:36:42,400
and with from from the tunnel
itself, the operation of the

1395
01:36:42,400 --> 01:36:46,120
tunnel itself to to then
understand what are the.

1396
01:36:46,120 --> 01:36:49,440
Conditions in the test section.
You think that would be a simple

1397
01:36:49,440 --> 01:36:52,240
question, right?
If I, if I'm down in the low

1398
01:36:52,240 --> 01:36:55,520
speed tunnel in the aeronautics
lab here at the Academy, I don't

1399
01:36:55,520 --> 01:37:00,400
ask what is the Mach number in
the test section, I or the

1400
01:37:00,400 --> 01:37:02,720
Reynolds number.
I don't ask that question.

1401
01:37:03,120 --> 01:37:06,760
But you have to ask that
question when you're doing

1402
01:37:06,760 --> 01:37:10,720
hypersonic ground testing.
And how you answer that question

1403
01:37:10,720 --> 01:37:14,440
could mean your results are are
it's not your results are bad,

1404
01:37:14,560 --> 01:37:17,960
you've collected good data, but
you don't know the conditions

1405
01:37:18,120 --> 01:37:21,720
that data is for.
So when you report it, you say

1406
01:37:21,720 --> 01:37:24,640
this for a Mach number and a
rounds number of such and such.

1407
01:37:27,120 --> 01:37:30,560
How did you get that?
And nobody or very few people

1408
01:37:30,560 --> 01:37:35,000
ever say that in their papers.
OK, I've got a Mach 6 Ludwig

1409
01:37:35,000 --> 01:37:38,840
tube and I can, I can do some
measurements and I can tell you

1410
01:37:38,840 --> 01:37:42,520
that it's OK, it's 5.93.
And that's pretty typical.

1411
01:37:42,720 --> 01:37:46,160
And, but what's the Reynolds
number?

1412
01:37:46,720 --> 01:37:47,880
How do I know the Reynolds
number?

1413
01:37:49,960 --> 01:37:52,320
What do I have to measure to
figure that out?

1414
01:37:52,760 --> 01:37:56,440
And and in a test that lasts for
a millisecond.

1415
01:37:58,280 --> 01:38:01,120
So those those are really
interesting things that are that

1416
01:38:01,120 --> 01:38:05,280
that that I'm still learning
from and and having enjoyment in

1417
01:38:05,280 --> 01:38:07,000
in doing.
Yeah.

1418
01:38:07,880 --> 01:38:11,680
Well, our time is nearly up.
I appreciate we, you know, we

1419
01:38:11,680 --> 01:38:14,520
could probably talk for hours on
this and it would be great to

1420
01:38:14,520 --> 01:38:17,040
have that opportunity.
But one last question I had for

1421
01:38:17,040 --> 01:38:20,440
you was, you know, you've worked
in the aeronautics industry,

1422
01:38:20,440 --> 01:38:22,800
both in academia, now industry,
government.

1423
01:38:24,520 --> 01:38:26,880
What advice would you give to
people who are maybe your

1424
01:38:26,880 --> 01:38:31,360
younger self, who are looking
for a career to follow you?

1425
01:38:31,520 --> 01:38:34,000
You know, what advice would you
give them?

1426
01:38:34,960 --> 01:38:38,880
So because I was involved in
student activities at a AA for

1427
01:38:38,880 --> 01:38:42,040
many years, I've had, I've had
people ask that question before,

1428
01:38:42,040 --> 01:38:44,880
what's, what's the thing that
that led to all this?

1429
01:38:44,880 --> 01:38:48,760
Well, first of all, I didn't
plan any of this, but I would

1430
01:38:48,760 --> 01:38:53,800
say in one word, perseverance.
Don't give up.

1431
01:38:53,800 --> 01:38:56,840
So I think back to that kid
coming out of high school who

1432
01:38:56,840 --> 01:38:59,320
was being told you're making the
worst decision of your life.

1433
01:38:59,680 --> 01:39:02,040
And all I could say was I love
airplanes.

1434
01:39:02,360 --> 01:39:04,360
I'm going to do this because I
love airplanes.

1435
01:39:04,640 --> 01:39:08,720
And if it means I have a career
where it's up and down and

1436
01:39:08,720 --> 01:39:12,680
bumpy, and it was for many
people, that's fine, but it

1437
01:39:12,680 --> 01:39:16,440
hasn't been for me.
Just don't give up.

1438
01:39:16,440 --> 01:39:18,320
If this is something you really
enjoy.

1439
01:39:19,040 --> 01:39:21,440
Like they say, you'll never work
a day in your life.

1440
01:39:22,320 --> 01:39:24,440
You'll you'll be enjoying what
you do.

1441
01:39:24,640 --> 01:39:29,600
You'll be learning, you'll be
teaching, you'll be helping

1442
01:39:29,600 --> 01:39:32,120
others to understand.
You'll be writing textbooks.

1443
01:39:32,120 --> 01:39:34,120
Whoever thought when I was
taking that erroneous?

1444
01:39:34,320 --> 01:39:36,480
Class as an.
Undergraduate that not only

1445
01:39:36,480 --> 01:39:39,160
would I teach erroneous, but I
would write the textbook.

1446
01:39:39,160 --> 01:39:44,600
It's like, that's crazy talk.
Just just keep going.

1447
01:39:45,080 --> 01:39:48,680
Do what what's interesting, do
what you're interested in and

1448
01:39:48,680 --> 01:39:53,320
you enjoy and and and and don't
don't necessarily listen to what

1449
01:39:53,320 --> 01:39:56,880
everybody else is saying.
I I remember what Dustin

1450
01:39:56,880 --> 01:39:59,040
Hoffman.
In what's that movie where the

1451
01:39:59,040 --> 01:40:02,240
guy comes up to him and says the
future is plastics, right?

1452
01:40:04,440 --> 01:40:07,320
That that was a famous lineback
that was in, in like in the

1453
01:40:07,320 --> 01:40:09,760
early 70's.
The future is plastic.

1454
01:40:09,760 --> 01:40:13,200
It's like, all right, Do I
really want to listen to a guy

1455
01:40:13,200 --> 01:40:16,400
who told me that at a party when
I graduated?

1456
01:40:16,400 --> 01:40:21,120
No, Do what you really are
interested in and and don't let

1457
01:40:21,120 --> 01:40:24,280
other people.
You know, you, you want to grow,

1458
01:40:24,280 --> 01:40:28,480
you want to expand, you want to
evolve, but just keep going.

1459
01:40:29,000 --> 01:40:34,120
I, I saw many people along the
path who were I, I absolutely

1460
01:40:34,120 --> 01:40:39,120
believe this much smarter than I
am who crashed and burned on the

1461
01:40:39,120 --> 01:40:45,840
side of the road for whatever
reason, I I was not the instant

1462
01:40:45,960 --> 01:40:49,720
you know, I figured it out.
I understand it.

1463
01:40:49,720 --> 01:40:55,040
I know what I'm doing person as
I went through my studies and,

1464
01:40:57,880 --> 01:41:02,000
and maybe that helped because I
was just going, I have to work,

1465
01:41:02,240 --> 01:41:05,800
I have to, I have to spend time,
I have to try to understand this

1466
01:41:06,000 --> 01:41:09,400
and I'm going to put that time
in and, and get that done.

1467
01:41:09,640 --> 01:41:14,600
And then, like I said, couple
that with meeting people as you

1468
01:41:14,600 --> 01:41:20,160
go, and not just at that moment,
but making those relationships,

1469
01:41:20,160 --> 01:41:24,000
the relationships of a lifetime,
because those people aren't just

1470
01:41:24,000 --> 01:41:28,800
colleagues, they're friends.
And there's hundreds of them.

1471
01:41:30,240 --> 01:41:32,880
My, my kids are that, you know,
dad, you don't have any friends.

1472
01:41:32,880 --> 01:41:34,560
You go, no, I have friends all
over the world.

1473
01:41:35,680 --> 01:41:37,200
It's just.
It's just.

1474
01:41:37,800 --> 01:41:39,640
You know, I go to Oxford and
they're there.

1475
01:41:39,640 --> 01:41:41,840
I go to Germany to DLR and
they're there.

1476
01:41:41,840 --> 01:41:43,760
I already go to Australia and
they're there.

1477
01:41:45,560 --> 01:41:51,000
It it really is.
More than just the thing you're

1478
01:41:51,000 --> 01:41:55,720
doing, it's and we said that
what for Hughes and for Oxford

1479
01:41:55,920 --> 01:42:01,880
and you know, all the way
through, just enjoy it and, and

1480
01:42:01,880 --> 01:42:05,400
you'll make it work.
Yeah, great piece of advice.

1481
01:42:05,440 --> 01:42:08,800
I completely agree with you.
Perseverance and doing a job

1482
01:42:08,800 --> 01:42:11,360
that you'll love and you're
passionate about makes it feel

1483
01:42:11,360 --> 01:42:13,800
less like a job.
Of course there's always times

1484
01:42:13,800 --> 01:42:16,080
when it will feel like a job and
they'll be stressed and

1485
01:42:16,080 --> 01:42:19,320
everything.
But if, if you love what you do,

1486
01:42:19,840 --> 01:42:22,600
then yeah, it makes it all a lot
easier.

1487
01:42:22,600 --> 01:42:25,800
So, yeah, thank you again.
This was, you know, really I

1488
01:42:25,800 --> 01:42:30,640
learnt a lot and I love your,
your life story and your we

1489
01:42:30,920 --> 01:42:33,440
obviously there's so many things
that you've done more in the

1490
01:42:33,440 --> 01:42:35,480
specifics at which we didn't get
time.

1491
01:42:35,480 --> 01:42:36,880
We kept this a little bit more
high level.

1492
01:42:37,160 --> 01:42:40,240
But I will put some links to,
you know, the textbooks and

1493
01:42:40,240 --> 01:42:42,960
papers and and things that
you've done so people can, you

1494
01:42:42,960 --> 01:42:45,000
know, investigate in their own
time.

1495
01:42:45,000 --> 01:42:47,320
But yeah, thank you again, Russ,
This was this was great.

1496
01:42:48,120 --> 01:42:51,280
My absolute pleasure and thank
you, Neil, for, for doing this,

1497
01:42:51,280 --> 01:42:54,040
for not, not just for this
podcast, but for all the ones

1498
01:42:54,040 --> 01:42:56,240
you've done.
They're they're really

1499
01:42:56,240 --> 01:42:58,440
interesting and, and I've
enjoyed watching them.

1500
01:42:59,200 --> 01:42:59,960
Great.
Thank you.