AFRL, AEDC celebrate partnership 10th anniversary Published Nov. 27, 2024 By Bradley Hicks AEDC Public Affairs ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. -- Leaders of the Air Force laboratory and test enterprise recently gathered at Arnold Air Force Base to acknowledge a 10-year partnership advancing high-speed systems development. Air Force Test Center Commander Maj. Gen. Scott Cain asserted to those assembled for the Oct. 2 ceremony that the insights of early Air Force leaders should continue to steer current and future branch personnel. As an example of guidance that remains as pertinent today as it did 80 years ago, Cain shared a quote by the man considered to be the father of the U.S. Air Force – Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold. “‘The first essential of airpower is preeminence in research,’” Cain said, repeating Arnold’s words from 1944. A decade ago, leveraging an existing relationship, a partnership between the Air Force Research Laboratory and Arnold Engineering Development Complex was forged with the objective of maintaining and advancing Air Force technological supremacy. Personnel from both organizations gathered in the von Kármán Gas Dynamics Facility, or VKF, at Arnold Air Force Base to mark the 10th anniversary of the union that led to the creation of the AFRL High Speed Experimentation Branch. Since its inception, this branch, which has since been renamed the High Speed Aerodynamics Branch, has focused on hypersonic research. Much of the work related to this collaboration has been performed in the VKF at Arnold AFB, headquarters of AEDC. The celebration featured several speakers who remarked on the current and prospective impact of the branch. The ceremony was emceed by Jamie Szmodis, chief of the AFRL High Speed Aerodynamics Branch, who discussed the history of the partnership between AFRL and AEDC. “In the mid-2000s, hypersonic science and technology and hypersonic test and evaluation began to surge,” Szmodis said. “The X-51 flight demonstration of a hydrocarbon scramjet engine flew, with varying success, four consecutive years starting in 2010. The X-51 successes birthed plans for an AFRL and AEDC partnership to ground test the world’s largest scramjet engine, [with airflow] 10 times larger than the X-51 engine.” In 2012, then-AEDC Executive Director Dr. Doug Blake and then-AFRL Executive Director Ricky Peters foresaw the benefits of further uniting the science and technology and the test and evaluation communities in a mutually beneficial partnership to accelerate the successful development and test of new technologies. “With an emerging growth in hypersonic research and test, a research branch embedded within the hypersonic test community was a perfect place to start,” Szmodis said. Glenn Liston was selected to stand up what was then known as the AFRL High Speed Experimentation Branch, which was officially established in October 2014. By the end of the following year, Liston had recruited and hired seven researchers and created high speed aerodynamics, structures and propulsion integration research portfolios. As they were familiarizing themselves with the AEDC mission, these researchers received a tour of VKF Tunnel D, which had not been used in 40 years. The group considered its usefulness for research activities, and the process of reactivating the dormant wind tunnel began thereafter. “AFRL partnered with AEDC to resurrect VKF Tunnel D to not only conduct high-speed research, but also as an inexpensive collaborative platform for research and test partnerships,” Szmodis said. Since it again became operational in February 2019, thousands of runs have been conducted in Tunnel D, which is operated, managed and scheduled by the AFRL High Speed Aerodynamics Branch. “Although VKF Tunnel D is an effective research tool, the primary purpose, and AFRL’s and AEDC’s focus, is on developing lasting partnerships, bridging the transition of new technologies to the test and evaluation community and accelerating the acquisition of effective capabilities to the warfighter,” Szmodis said. AEDC Senior Technical Director Ed Tucker referred to the 10th anniversary of the partnership as a “significant milestone,” adding that he has observed the benefits of the partnership firsthand through both his current and previous roles, including his time serving as chief of the AEDC Hypersonic Test & Evaluation Branch. He also said it simply made sense for AFRL to have a footprint at Arnold AFB. “Today’s celebration is less about the fact that this experiment has survived for 10 years, but it’s really more about a recognition of the significant accomplishments that have occurred as a result of this collaboration, as well as the promising future of what could become,” Tucker said. “How exactly our teaming relationship transforms to meet future needs of the warfighter is yet to be determined, but I believe the best days for the AFRL-AEDC partnership lie ahead.” Like Cain, Col. Aaron Tucker, chief of the AFRL High Speed Systems Division, quoted instrumental figures in the history of the Air Force to illustrate the importance of science and research to the Air Force mission. “Gen. Hap Arnold wrote in the last year of World War II that ‘The security of the United States of America will continue to rest in part in developments instituted by our educational and professional scientists,’” Col. Tucker said. “To this letter, Dr. Theodore von Kármán, for whom this facility is named, responded with a report titled ‘Science: The Key to Air Supremacy.’ This outlined advances in aircraft and propulsion and included a statement that has guided my career. And I quote: ‘Scientific results cannot be used efficiently by soldiers who have no understanding of them, and scientists cannot produce results useful for warfare without an understanding of the operations.’” Colocation at Arnold AFB has been a key element to the partnership, as this has allowed AFRL researchers and test personnel under the umbrella of the Air Force Test Center, of which AEDC is a unit, to quickly share expertise, Col. Tucker said. “Together, AFRL and AEDC have developed advanced test methods and diagnostics which have informed future test facility requirements,” Col. Tucker said. “AFRL and AEDC have united efforts on multiple Small Business Innovation Research projects and share knowledge and equipment to advance research and test diagnostics.” Col. Tucker added that the partnership between AFRL and AEDC exemplifies U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s “One Team, One Fight” mantra. He said this alliance of research and test will play a vital role in the nation maintaining technological superiority over its adversaries. “May this partnership continue to grow as we work together to ensure the technological dominance of our great nation,” he said. Cain, a former AEDC commander, said lessons can be pulled from World War II which, much like the current-day environment, was a great power competition. National defense leaders at the time realized that adversaries were perhaps on their way to surpassing the U.S. due to their dedication to and investments in development-oriented forces. “That’s the vision, that we were going to need a development-oriented Air Force and, today, we stand here as the greatest force the world has ever known,” Cain said. “It’s a result of that vision that has made us dominant throughout the 20th Century and into the 21st Century. But that’s not guaranteed.” Cain said one of the pillars in reoptimizing the ongoing great power competition is capability development. He said the partnership between AFRL and AEDC could aid in this effort, as it could serve as a template for effectively bringing scientists, engineers and test personnel together to pursue such development. “There are things that have worked. There are things that probably have not worked so well, and we should look to this and use it as a guide for what we might do next,” Cain said. However, Cain stated the vision for the future should be much broader. “We need to be thinking bigger than just how we reoptimize capability development,” he said. “I do think we need to be thinking about how it is that we establish, or we maintain, or we continue to be a development-oriented Air Force. It is not guaranteed, and it takes the communication, the efforts, the push by all of us to show that path to the leadership in the Air Force. “Our adversaries have watched us do this, and they have decided that they will become that kind of force. It’s my contention that we can generate a competitive advantage if we continue down that path ourselves, but it takes us knowing the story of these kind of partnerships, between the Lab, between the Test Center, understanding what it actually takes to do capability development and coming together as a development community to push that vision forward, that vision that got us to where we are today. “So that’s the challenge. It’s one that I’m ready to accept. I’m looking for your help along the way.”