ALIGNING USAF STUDENT RESEARCH WITH STRATEGIC PRIORITIES

The United States Air Force (USAF) is not effectively utilizing the student research ecosystem to contribute toward USAF strategic priorities. This project researched how the USAF can enhance student research to contribute toward senior leaders’ requirements. The USAF needs to align academic research to provide solutions toward strategic competition in a resource-constrained environment. Aligning research to problems can only enhance the resulting innovation. We submitted a survey to 1,175 USAF students at civilian institutions. Of 266 responses, 83% had a deliverable requirement, 81% did not receive information about current USAF research priorities and funding opportunities, 91% would have considered incorporating USAF research priorities into their graduate research if they had received information about them, and 95% would potentially use a mobile application that gives access to prioritized USAF research questions, command sponsorships, and funding. Not aligning USAF-sponsored academic research with strategic priorities is mainly an organizational problem. First, the USAF should improve the talent management process to match students to appropriate research fields. Second, the USAF should improve education about academic resources for aligning research, finding sponsors, and securing funding. Lastly, the USAF should connect existing AFIT/CI students across the research ecosystem via a mobile application endorsed by Air Education and Training Command.Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air ForceMajor, United States Air ForceApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

A comparison of theoretical and experimental pressure distributions for two advanced fighter wings

A comparison was made between experimental pressure distributions measured during testing of the Vought A-7 fighter and the theoretical predictions of four transonic potential flow codes. Isolated wind and three wing-body codes were used for comparison. All comparisons are for transonic Mach numbers and include both attached and separate flows. In general, the wing-body codes gave better agreement with the experiment than did the isolated wing code but, because of the greater complexity of the geometry, were found to be considerably more expensive and less reliable

Electromagnetic waves in gravitational wave spacetimes

We have considered the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a space-time representing an exact gravitational plane wave and calculated the induced changes on the four-potential field Aμ of a plane electromagnetic wave. By choosing a suitable photon round-trip in a Michelson interferometer, we have been able to identify the physical effects of the exact gravitational wave on the electromagnetic field, i.e. phase shift, change of the polarization vector, angular deflection and delay. These results have been exploited to study the response of an interferometric gravitational wave detector beyond the linear approximation of the general theory of relativity. A much more detailled examination of this problem can be found in our paper recently published in Classical and Quantum Gravity (28 (2011) 235007)