2013 Reagan K. Woolf

Reagan K. Woolf is worthy of the Kelly Johnson Award as he has catapulted his career through excellence at his active assignments, contributing to the field of flight test engineering, capitalizing on leadership opportunities, giving back to the local community and SFTE society, and then propagating that expertise through other organizations. He has over twelve distinctive awards, has published nine Technical Reports, presented ten Conference papers (winning a best paper and a best of session), and is currently Edwards’ renowned Performance Technical Expert.

Reagan K. Woolf has catapulted his career through excellence at his active assignments, contributing to the field of flight test engineering, capitalizing on leadership opportunities, giving back to the community, and then propagating that expertise through other organizations. He has over twelve distinctive awards, has published nine Technical Reports, presented ten Conference papers (winning a best paper and a best of session), and is currently Edwards’ renowned Performance Technical Expert.

Leadership and Recent Contributions: In January 2011 Reagan took over as the Aircraft Performance Technical Expert, overseeing every performance effort on base. Since then he has technically evaluated the F-35 performance and high angle of attack program, C-130 engine upgrade, C-130 NP2000 propeller upgrade, C-130 aft body drag reduction, T-53A performance, TG-16A performance, UV-18B VMCA, C-17 tailwind takeoff and landing, B-1B wheel/brake upgrade, Aeritalia G.222 aircraft for Afghanistan, T-1A touch-and-go, and RQ-4 block 20/40 performance.

Community Involvement: One of the most impressive and generous contributions by Reagan is his dedication to fostering Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) within the Antelope Valley. He selflessly gave his time to coach Lego robotics teams within the local schools, motivating the next generation to pursue STEM studies and ultimately careers.

Professional Involvement: This year was scared with an assault on our normal operations through sequestration. Mr. Woolf combated this limitation by innovatively constructing, organizing, and executing a local chapter SFTE mini-symposium. This was remarkable because it was affordable, within the congressionally mandated limitations of allowable work, yet sustained the technical rigor and breadth which proudly epitomizes the SFTE community.

Background: Mr. Woolf entire career has been involved with aircraft, but his aerospace engineering career began as a civilian at Edwards AFB in 2000. His expertise is dominated in Performance, but the assortment of platforms and test objectives is staggering. He started by generating flight manual performance charts for the T-38C, which required implementation of the General Electric J85-GE-5M engine status deck. This required him to combine three previously diverse software programs into a first-ever integrated system sharing common aero and engine models. This progressed into the planning, execution, and analysis of an alternate manufacturing source Pitot-static tube for the T-38. This impressively culminated, via his Technical Report, into a decision to use this tested alternative on the entire T-38 fleet.

Moving onto larger aircraft, Reagan was assigned as the lead performance engineer for C-130H Minimum Control Speed and Drag Polar Determination flight test program. In addition to planning, executing, analyzing, and reporting on the aerodynamic data, this is when Reagan began to expand his leadership by supervising, training, and mentoring two developing engineers. To continue his trend of testing then improving instrumentation, he then worked as the air data engineer for the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program. This required an assortment of test for the Goodrich Smart Probe Calibration flight test program, including calibration of the wingtip air data boom, trailing cone, and kiel probe.

His next assignment was as the pacer aircraft project engineer where he was responsible for the test calibration programs across Edwards’ aircraft inventory. These flight test programs included F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, F-22A Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM), F-117, B-2 RVSM, B-52 Replacement Pitot Tube, C-17 RVSM, MC-130H, C-130H Avionics Modernization Program, T-38C, Navy Tactical Tomahawk, F-16 Replacement Pitot-static Tube, Airborne Laser, and F-16 Upgraded Central Air Data Computer.

Recognizing the wave of the future Reagan asserted his attention to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). He became the lead performance engineer for the Global Vigilance Combined Test Force supporting RQ-4 Block 20/30/40 Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance, unmanned aerial vehicle, and X-47B Navy unmanned combat aerial system. Here he expanded his leadership and flight test engagement by leading the guidance and control team in the mission control room for over 45 medium and high risk test flights. As with his other assignments, he published as co-author of the preliminary technical report that led to the decision to purchase a low rate initial production lot of five aircraft, and authored the final technical report that evaluated aircraft performance against capability requirements.