Jerry Hefner

A member of the first engineering class at Old Dominion, Jerry Hefner ’66 has worked at NASA Langley Research Center for 38 years, conducting, managing and supervising aerospace research that has ranged from reconfiguring the X-15 to fly higher and faster, to determining aerothermodynamic heating loads on the space shuttle orbiter, to developing technologies that reduce drag on commercial airplanes.

He is currently manager of the Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) project, an ambitious $150 million public-private partnership launched in 2001 by NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Consortium for Aviation Mobility. The goal is to develop flight deck and flight path technologies and operating capabilities that will enable travel by small passenger aircraft operating from underused suburban and rural airports throughout the United States.

“The vision,” Hefner said, “is to one day offer a safe and secure, near all-weather, point-to-point air travel capability that complements the current hub-and-spoke system, but allows greater mobility since travelers could then fly from airports that are within a 30-minute drive from their homes.”

Traditional air carriers serve only some 700 of the country’s more than 18,000 landing facilities, he noted.

“This project has probably been the most challenging of my career because it requires a large group of people with diverse expectations working in a partnership to learn how to do things differently,” he said.

According to Hefner, SATS will lead to a revolution in air travel.

“This is the beginning of a major paradigm shift from the hub-and-spoke model of air transportation to an alternate system that brings air transportation close to home.”

NASA research in the late 1990s led to the emergence of a new generation of lower cost, small aircraft, including lightweight business jets (micro-jets), that incorporate state-of-the-art advancements in avionics, airframes, engines and advanced pilot training technologies, Hefner said. The SATS concept applies not only to this new generation of small four- to 10-passenger micro-jets, but also to currently produced general aviation and business aircraft.

Utilizing SATS technology, these single-pilot micro-jets could function as air taxis, offering on-demand service to regional airports for the cost of a first-class ticket on today’s commercial airlines, he said.

With advanced new primary flight displays and multifunction displays that incorporate synthetic vision, highway-in-the-sky and cockpit display of traffic information, as well as other technologies, these planes would be able to land at airports that have no control towers or terminal radar facilities and to do so even in adverse weather conditions.

Several manufacturers appear to be interested in developing micro-jets, Hefner said, and a number of service-provider companies are starting to position themselves as carriers for this new “jet-taxi” system.

“Air taxis could take people off of commercial airplanes for trips in the 300- to 1,000-mile range,” Hefner predicts. “Low-cost single-engine piston airplanes could take people out of cars for 200- to 300-mile trips.”

He believes that SATS could be implemented and operating by 2010.

– Michelle Nery

John C. Lin

The aviation industry has much for which to thank John C. Lin ’80 (M.E. ’85, Ph.D. ’92). A senior research engineer at NASA Langley Research Center, he pioneered the development of tiny fins and tabs for aircraft wings and flaps that increase vehicle performance, reduce noise and save fuel.

When lined up across the top surface of a wing and/or its trailing-edge flap(s), the miniature passive flow-control devices, called Micro-Vortex Generators (MVGs), help increase lift and reduce drag by locally energizing the airflow such that it adheres to the surface more effectively. When airflow separates from the wing or flap surface, aircraft performance can suffer in the form of increased drag, loss of lift and higher fuel consumption.

The technology has contributed to the development of several commercial transport and general aviation aircraft. One example is the MVG-equipped Gulfstream V business jet. The aircraft has claimed 46 world and national records, including 21 speed and 25 performance records.

Lin also holds a patent for aircraft noise reduction, thanks to a device he developed called the Microtab. Placed underneath the aircraft flap, along its side edges, Microtabs alter swirling airflow, effectively dampening flow-induced airframe noise during landing approach.

In the last few years, Lin has also worked with engineers from the Navy and Northrop Grumman Newport News on improving performance of underwater vessels.

Lin, who is widely published in research journals, has more than 70 publications and presentations to his credit. He received NASA’s Outstanding Engineering Achievement Medal in 1998 and holds 16 other NASA awards. He received a Best Paper of the Year award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in 1992. He won the AIAA Hampton Roads Section’s and Peninsula Engineering Council’s Engineer of the Year awards, both in 1999, and was named AIAA Region I Engineer of the Year the following year. He currently serves as president of both organizations.

An AIAA Associate Fellow, an honor the organization bestows on its senior members who make substantial contributions to aerospace engineering, Lin got an early start with NASA Langley, joining the co-op program there in 1978. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he went to work full time as an aerospace engineer, conducting research in the area of viscous flows. At the same time, he began work on his advanced degrees, taking night classes at his alma mater.

Lin credits ODU for giving him his start in engineering as well as his college advisers, including Robert Ash, now associate vice president for research and economic development, and Gregory Selby, associate professor of mechanical engineering, for their mentorship.

“The work I did for my Ph.D. research led to the subsequent development of MVG and Microtab technologies at NASA,” Lin said. “My experience at ODU taught me how to conduct thorough and objective research. I was very fortunate to have great mentors like Dr. Ash and Dr. Selby, because they can inspire and bring out the best in you.”

– James J. Lidington

Anna-Maria McGowan

The daily roar of commercial airplanes over Anna-Maria McGowan’s (M.S. ’99) childhood home sparked her interest in flight early on.

“We lived near a large airport and I thought that it was really neat,” she recalls. “My parents stoked that drive and took me to trade shows, the air and space museum, and had me meet pilots.”

Today, McGowan works at NASA Langley Research Center as a manager in the Aerospace Vehicle Systems Technology Office, where she helps develop technologies to make air travel safer, more efficient and environmentally friendly.

McGowan, who received her master’s degree in aerospace engineering, has worked at NASA Langley for 15 years. Her parents, who immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago to attend Howard University, instilled in her early on the value of education and working hard.

She is the third McGowan to attend ODU. Her husband, Paul, and brother-in-law David earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at the university. All three got master’s degrees in engineering and studied under the same adviser, Professor Chuh Mei.

McGowan, however, did not meet her future husband until after they both started working at LaRC. They now have an 8-month-old son, Douglas, whom she adores. “I’m working fewer hours now, not 60 hours a week. I’m trying to be a normal human,” she said.

For the past four years, McGowan has managed the Morphing project, where she and her colleagues have developed ultra-light smart materials and structures, aerodynamic concepts and lightweight subsystems, all designed to increase aircraft efficiency. Next year, she will manage the Actively Tailored High Lift Project, which will look at technology for supersonic aircraft and Extremely Short Take Off and Landing aircraft.

As part of the Morphing project, McGowan has overseen several research initiatives, including one whose goal is to find alternatives to conventional controls used in airplanes today. “You might use small synthetic jet actuators inside the wing, pulse circulation control, inflatable wing concepts, or articulating wing concepts that would gently change the shape of the wing,” she explained. She also worked on micro-flow control, biologically inspired concepts for airplanes and flexible wing concepts.

McGowan anticipates that the technology she and her colleagues are developing will be used in aircraft of the future, including those being created at NASA Langley by the Small Aircraft Transportation System project, which is managed by another ODU graduate, Jerry Hefner ’66.

Last year, McGowan served as the national spokesperson for the Space Day education initiative, which encourages young people to become part of the next generation of inventors, aviators and explorers. Held in Washington, D.C., it was just the type of event her parents probably would have taken her to when she was young. This time though, she was one of the people inspiring future pilots and engineers, alongside such aerospace VIPs as former U.S. senator and astronaut John Glenn and NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe.

– Michelle Nery

Wendy Pennington

As a freshman in high school, Wendy Pennington ’89 dreamed of becoming an engineer. In the 23 years she has been with NASA, she not only fulfilled that ambition but has also contributed significantly to the future of aeronautics and helped educate a new generation of engineers.

Pennington, who received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, is head of the Aircraft Engineering Branch, Flight Research Services Competency, at NASA Langley Research Center. She coordinates the activities and assignments of more than 24 electrical and mechanical engineers and technicians who support flight research systems development.

“I love working at NASA and always have,” said Pennington, who first joined the agency in 1980 as part of the agency’s cooperative student program.

She graduated from the technician apprentice program as an engineering technician designer before receiving her ODU degree.

“I had wanted to be an engineer ever since I was in high school,” she recalls. “I enrolled in a mechanical drafting class when I was a freshman and have loved it ever since. My drafting teachers encouraged me to continue in the drafting field and to pursue a degree in engineering, so I did.”

At NASA Langley, Pennington has done everything from participating as a subject in human-factors studies of models for testing new shuttle escape vehicles to machining hardware for space experiments, including the Long Duration Exposure Facility. The LDEF was deployed in orbit in 1984 by the space shuttle Challenger and remained in space for nearly six years, providing long-term data on the space environment and its effects on space systems and operations.

At one point in her career, she also worked in the LaRC Full Scale Tunnel, now operated by Old Dominion’s Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology.

In her previous role as assistant head of the Systems Development Branch in Airborne Systems Competency, Pennington managed a group of engineers and technicians that designed and applied specialized advanced concepts for use in various airplanes, work that will influence how passengers will fly safely in the future.

Pennington credits her ODU degree with enabling her to take on more complex and innovative projects. Among her accomplishments are leading a NASA engineering team that included Boeing to develop a scaled remote-piloted model of the Blended Wing Body, which would revolutionize the transport and cargo aircraft, and receiving a NASA Fellowship Award.

To help generate an interest in engineering among kids today, similar to what she experienced as a young student, Pennington has developed an educational outreach project for middle school children, utilizing the Blended Wing Body concept design, “to encourage them to dream of becoming an engineer like me!”

– Jennifer Mullen

Vince Zoby

Vince Zoby (M.E. ’69) has never been to Venus or Jupiter, but he’s come as close as any human ever has. A NASA researcher for more than 40 years, Zoby worked on the Pioneer Venus program in the late 1970s, which consisted of probes that entered the Venusian atmosphere and gathered data.

“I worked with post-flight data analysis of the heating measurements and the comparison with predicted results,” said Zoby, who received his master’s degree in thermal engineering and was one of long-time ODU Professor Robert Ash’s first students.

During his tenure at NASA Langley Research Center, where he has worked solely in the applied research field, Zoby also was involved in data analysis from the early space shuttle flights and contributed to the Galileo mission.

Launched in 1989, the Galileo orbiter was sent into Jupiter’s atmosphere to study the planet, its satellites and its magnetosphere. General Electric, the vehicle designer, used an engineering code Zoby developed for the heating prediction of an entry into the Jupiter environment as its design tool.
Currently, Zoby is leading a NASA Langley team that will provide Boeing Huntington Beach with the hypersonic and high-altitude, on-orbit aerodynamic databases required to successfully enter a Boeing experimental vehicle.

Additionally, his team is providing “computational aeroheating rates over the vehicle surface as a function of vehicle entry time.” These are required for the design of the vehicle’s thermal protection system so that the craft can safely re-enter the earth’s atmosphere, he explained.
Zoby also serves as editor of the AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets.

Despite his high-profile assignments, the best things about working for NASA, according to Zoby, are the people he works with, and “also for many years, the environment that asked you to provide the best technical analysis possible, to help contribute to a NASA mission where the taxpayers’ money was spent effectively in aeronautics and space research, and to team with industry to provide important research information.”

Ash, who first joined ODU’s engineering faculty ranks in 1967 and is currently associate vice president for research and economic development, remembers Zoby as a “very serious student who was intense and highly motivated.” He still recalls teaching Zoby in a graduate course in heat transfer in the spring of 1969, just a few months before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

“He got an ‘E’ in the course, for ‘Excellent’ – the highest grade for graduate courses back then,” Ash noted. “He got the highest grade on the final as well.”

Ash also remembers Zoby, who would go on to take several courses beyond the degree requirements, as a man who didn’t like to waste time when he could be learning.