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On Friday, March 31, 2006, Lockheed Martin hosted twenty-six AME
students at the company's plant in Palmdale, CA popularly known as the
Skunk Works®. The students toured some of the facilities during
the morning and saw the new hybrid airship and the JSF cockpit
simulator. The hybrid airship was unveiled during its maiden flight
earlier in 2006 and is a model of a larger version that may be
developed later by the Skunk Works®. The flight simulator was
built as part of Lockheed Martin's successful bid for the JSF
contract. One student, Tai Merzel, was allowed to use the simulator
and was able to illustrate an inverted flight to his peers without
crashing!
In the afternoon, Lockheed's Ed Glasgow, Vice President of Advanced
Development Programs, presented an overview of some of the current
projects at the Skunk Works®. Mike Gonzales, who graduated from AME in
2004, talked about his work during the last year on the RATTLRS
project and Kevin Walsh, who graduated from USC with a BS in AE in
1984, discussed the JSF program. The team leaders from the USC
AeroDesign Team presented the aircraft they have designed and
constructed for the AIAA Design/Build/Fly competition to be
held April 21-23 in Wichita. Tai Merzel discussed the rational for
building a Blended Wing Body (BWB) airplane, Joe Yeargan presented the
aerodynamic design of the plane, Jessica Calhoun showed the bicycle
landing gear, Allie Anderson talked about the propulsion issues of the
plane and Ed Smetak discussed the structures and construction of the
BWB. The Advanced Development Program has supported the AeroDesign Team's
participation in the Design/Build/Fly competition for many years.
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Students making the trip to the Skunk Works are from left to right:
Front row; Matt Miller, Margaret Walker (Lockheed), Shweta
Shrivastava, Lucy Hoag, Allison Anderson, Chris Shelner, Caitlyn
Fahey, Jessica Calhaun, Rosa Torres, Tanner Yaberg; middle row: Gary
Hafen (Lockheed), Justin Thompson, Allen Eramya, Chris McNutt
(partially hidden), Gary Galerne, Luke Hardman, Tai Merzel, Ron
Blackwelder (faculty advisor), Brian Kirk; back row: Chris Poblete,
Jordan Sepstein, Julian Soro, Ian Whttinghill, Arvin Shajanian, Jeff
Kaiser, Joe Yeargan, Paul Giuliano, Tomas Campuzano, Ed Smetak.
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