Minutes of a Meeting of the
AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems
Technical Committee
16 January 1996
34th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting
Reno, Nevada
The meeting was called to order by committee chairman Dean Jorgensen at 8:00 a.m.
This was the second meeting collocated with the National Parachute Technology
Council and Dr. Jorgensen welcomed NPTC chairman Dr. Carl Peterson and other
NPTC members to the ADS TC meeting. Christine Hailey was appointed secretary
pro tem. A list of those in attendance is appended (Bottom of Page).
AIAA News
Eleanor Aldrich from AIAA Headquarters announced that AIAA is moving to Reston,
VA, as an economy measure. AIAA has restructured into teams. There are no more
division directors. Ms. Aldrich requested the members of the ADS TC complete
a survey concerning new technologies and new programs that might provide a business
opportunity for AIAA. Dr. Jorgensen noted to Ms. Aldrich that the ADS TC is
considering development of a short course.
Minutes of 19 September 1995 Meeting
The minutes of the 19 September meeting, held at Textron Systems Division in
Wilmington, Massachusetts, were accepted as presented.
Treasurer's Report
Treasurer Chris Carlson presented the year end statement with a balance of $5,436.85.
A detailed transaction report is shown in Appendix B. He will prepare the necessary
paperwork to obtain a Tax ID for the ADS TC in 1996 and will also consider finding
a new bank with a smaller service charge.
Annual Report
The chairman presented the ADS TC 1995 Annual Report (Appendix C) which was submitted
to Bernie Kaufman, AIAA Deputy Director for Mechanics and Control of Flight.
TC Organization
The chairman welcomed new TC members Karen Evans, Aerojet Inc., Alec Dyatt,
Edwards Air Force Base and Mo Gionfriddo, MPG Consulting, Inc. He also noted
that April 30, 1996, marks the changing of the guard for the TC. Karen, Alec
and Mo's tenure will begin at the end of April. David Aguillar, Joe Holder,
Cal Kato, Miguel Lopez, and Greg Nash will leave the TC. Fortunately, Bob
Underwood has requested to rejoin the TC. Cal Kato suggested names of two
individuals who might be interested in joining the TC.
"Old" Business
Members of the ADS TC were asked by the chairman to note the ongoing sale of
T-shirts ($9) and golf shirts ($22) with the ADS logo.
Drawing/Specifications/Standards Discussion
With the institution of Secretary Perry's initiative on replacing manufacturing
and design specs with performance specs, the U. S. government will no longer
support many of the specifications and standards we need. At the same time,
vendors are unilaterally changing material specs to make materials less expensive,
but those changes may have performance consequences.
Jim French, AIAA staff, urged our TC to update specs/standards with AIAA
coordination. Mo Gionfriddo urged doing this in conjunction with PIA. Jim said
that AIAA is ANSI-accredited, PIA is not. He recommended working with ASTM
(which has a fabrics branch) and a Manufacturing/Construction group. SAE is a
competitor of AIAA; they work together only when it helps both organizations.
This issue is complex, having QA, standards, weaver/yarn manufacturers' interests,
industry/gov't consensus, maintenance problems woven throughout the initiative.
With PIA, the ADS TC should decide what standards should/should not be maintained.
AIAA would like to make money from what we do. They will support the TC's work
in this area.
Only Pioneer uses SO17; Guardian, Paraflite do not. Ed Fallon will ask someone
to read through the document, recommend changes. Ditto NAWC (Cal Kato), Natick
(Rich Benney). They will merge views by next meeting.
Dean Jorgensen suggested that a TC member from Sandia, Army, and Navy list the
specifications we use and identify those that are going away. Don Waye will then
catalogue the material specs we use and need. Cal Kato will catalogue hardware.
AA Parachute Highlights
The Aerospace America article is a winner. Don Waye has received several phone
calls since publication of the article and has directed the callers to the
appropriate individuals.
Team Reports
AIAA Database Report - Cal Kato
Cal's team has not had much time to work on this during the past four months.
Jean Potvin suggested establishing a format for the data base. See September
19, 1995 Meeting Minutes for questions we must resolve on the database. The
critical question is: what do we want from this database? An action item was
given to the team to determine what is desired from the database before the next
TC meeting. The team should do whatever they deem necessary to develop this
information (surveys, etc.).
We discussed having future conference papers submitted electronically to the
ADS TC as well as photo-ready copy to AIAA. Karl Doherr strongly cautioned
that the TC does not want to be involved in electronic information because of
word processor standardization issues and copyright problems. Don Waye offered
the idea of using just abstracts or other portions of papers to avoid copyright
problems.
Ram-Air Design Guide Team - Chris Hailey
After a quick market survey and discussion with several TC members, off-line,
the team determined that Steve Lingard's conference notes on ram-air parachute
design would not be appropriate to sell as an income-producer for the TC. Chris
suggests that there might be a service provided by making available copies of
Steve's notes, with his permission. Steve does not want to invest substantially
more work in preparing his notes for further distribution, especially if someone
else (other than the ADS TC) reaped the profits. He is willing to allow the ADS
TC to profit, however, The group decided $50 as the cost to people wanting a
copy after the seminar (half of the seminar cost).
Chris suggested that this team be disbanded. Questions remain concerning the
ADS TC's involvement in publications of future seminar notes and anything developed
in the Short Course. Another team will evolve to address these problems. The
issue with Steve's seminar material is resolved.
WWW Home Page Team - Richard Benney
The ADS TC home page is on line. Web Page address is
http://www.mame.syr.edu/adt/adt2.html. Biography profiles for the Web Page
are requested. Send the information to Richard, preferably in the form of
HTML- or ASCII-text.
We discussed what information should now be added to the page (meeting minutes,
past conference indices, mail list, links to PIA, other parachute activities
and URL addresses, databases, keyword links to experts and businesses, conference
information and recent proceedings indexes, newsletters, calendar info, nomination
forms, review articles, etc.).
Linking to commercial sites requires a policy. Dean suggests links to corporate
site home pages be done via the biography page rather than direct from the TC
home page. He wants to avoid having the TC Web pages become an advertising agency
or promotional house for all companies.
ADS TC Directory - Dean Jorgensen
Dean suggested that the TC Directory not be produced in paper form and instead
the information would be put on the Internet. Since everyone has access to the
Web, this suggestion was accepted.
ADS TC Newsletter Team - Ed Fallon
This task requires more effort than envisioned. Ed wants to produce a quality
newsletter that is "newsy" and inexpensive to produce. David Hailey, Utah State
University, has offered his students as a vehicle for writing the newsletter,
with work for his students as part of their education. TC members are very busy,
hard pressed to work on the newsletter, so Ed is encouraged to take David up on
his offer. Ed will also ask Andy Mawn for help in producing the newsletter.
The ADS TC would be willing to pay for the publication of the newsletter. Perhaps
Natick could print for free if it is in their interests to do so. Input from
TC members would go to USU for formatting, then to Natick (if allowed) for
printing. Ed will ask USU for styles for the newsletter.
Although the newsletter could be made available on the Internet, hard copy should
be sent to those the TC wants to approach, advertise to. The bird colonels and
industry engineering VPs must get a copy of this newsletter, at our initiative.
The newsletter can point to the WWW pages for more information.
Steve Lingard asked for a description of the marketing goals for this newsletter.
Who are we marketing, the TC and/or the supporting industry? We must screen out
overt sales pitches but include recognition of what industry has done to develop
and promote the technology. We must make decision makers aware that that parachutes
are high technology components and that the TC has a world-wide body of bright
technologists available to help them.
Ed asked for newsworthy inputs from TC members. He will also ask for inputs
from others in the parachute community. Focus on the technology side of the
story, but indicate where the technology/capability resides. We are not doing
advertising in this newsletter; we are communicating our capabilities in our
technology area. The newsletter team owns responsibility and authority to edit
contents of the newsletter.
lunch -- Tony Taylor and Phil Delurgio from Irvin and Oscar Sepp from OW
Sepp & Associates arrived for the afternoon session.
Heinrich Short Course Team - Dean Jorgensen, Don Waye
Bill Garrard is swamped as an administrator and is no longer anxious to run
the Decelerator Short Course. The University of Minnesota Dept. of Continuing
Education does not provide him with sufficient support or financial consideration.
He offered to rejoin the TC to help the TC develop its own course.
Bill and Dean agreed that running this course periodically will not succeed.
We should give the course on an "as needed" basis, and present application
specific information and workshops tuned to the class's interests. We could
develop the boilerplate material and present as much of it as required. Bill
suggested that Steve Lingard should be the principle lecturer in future courses.
The course could be tied to the conference, as the seminar was at the last
conference. Karl Doherr said that ~30-35 students are needed to enable the
course to be given.
Steve Lingard has concerns about the content and value of the course imposed
by the limitation of 2-3 days (if coupled to the conference). Previous courses
were 4-5 days. Dean advocates shortening the course somewhat (4 days) to reduce
costs. Steve suggests that we do market research on the need for the short
course, rather than relying on opinion.
The Short Course team should write a white paper on the history of the course
and propose when the next one should be, how it should be reworked and presented.
We would not be ready to give the course again until 1998 at the earliest, if
the market survey drives us to do so.
14th ADS Conference - Steve Lingard
Steve Lingard is the General Chair of the 14th ADS Conference. Karl Doherr and
Ed Fallon will serve as Technical Co-chairs. Chris Carlson will serve as
Administrative Chair, Danny Levin will serve as International Chair and George
Barnard will serve as Seminar Chair.
Steve and his team are recommending that San Francisco be the site of the next
conference. They have investigated three hotels vis-à-vis conference facilities,
accommodations for other TCs as well as our own (LTA, Balloon), and proximity
to other attractions. The Holiday Inn Union Square is their first choice, the
Miyako is second. We should soon determine what other TCs want to meet with us.
Dates are sometime in 1997, probably late May. First announcement of the
conference would be due in April 1996, abstract call would be in early August,
abstracts would be received in early September, notification would be by late
September. Paper submission would be by March 1997. Dean will submit our
application for this conference to AIAA's Karl Bradshaw. Chris reviewed the
great options for social activities and spouse programs.
Steve's biggest headache is the seminar, which would be held on the Monday
before the conference. The past two seminars were successful, but only because
the topic of the seminar was either good or "hot," and the meeting locations
were desirable. Suggested seminar topics were discussed, none of which "jumped
out" at Steve or the other TC members as being "hot." The three subjects of
interest to the TC members were fabric materials, testing, and trajectory
simulation and modeling, which are not "hot" today but are timeless problems.
The TC discussed the detailed content of seminars for each of these three
possible subjects, as well as possible lecturers. Trajectory modeling and
fabric materials were passed on to Steve as the candidates for the next seminar.
Steve's committee will chose between the two.
Outreach
National Parachute Technology Council - Carl Peterson
There is considerable synergism between the NPTC and the ADS TC. Dean suggested
"one-for-one" lateral links between NPTC and TC members on related activities.
Parachute Industry Association - Maurice Gionfriddo
PIA was really a sky diver association a few years ago. Recently, the PIA
leadership established a Government Systems Committee in recognition of the
need to broaden PIA's scope. They will begin to contact government agency
people to see how they can serve that (new to them) community. Mo urged ADS
TC government members to come to their San Francisco meeting in February.
1996 Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Award
Henry Hunter's name is carried over from 1994 and 1995. Matts Lindgren was
nominated by Bob Underwood for his work in satellite recovery. 1996 nominations
will close at the end of this meeting. The decision will be made at the next
TC meeting. Nominations for 1997 will be due in September.
Other Nominations
Theo's Reed Award nomination needs high-level support.
Vance is the sole nominee to succeed Dean as TC Chair. He was made Vice Chairman
by acclamation.
Next Meeting:
Tentatively scheduled for May 14, 1996 in Minneapolis, MN, hosted
by Bill Garrard, University of Minnesota.
ADS TC Meeting Attendees
Members:
Richard Benney
Chris Carlson
Karl Doherr
Alec Dyatt
Karen Evans
Ed Fallon
Mo Gionfriddo
Christine Hailey
Dave Hirst
Dean Jorgensen
Cal Kato
Daniel Levin
Steve Lingard
Miguel Lopez
Jean Potvin
Don Waye
NPTC:
Phil Delurgio, Irvin Aerospace
Carl Peterson, Sandia National Labs
Oscar Sepp, O.W. Sepp & Assoc.
Jim Stapenhill, Guardian Parachute
Tony Taylor, Irvin Aerospace
AIAA:
Eleanor Aldrich, Tech Committees
Karl Bradshaw, Conference
Jim French, Specs and Standards
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