Aviation

Long-Distance Commuter

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Sep 2018 19:25:00 +0000

Long-Distance Commuter Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 09/01/2018 - 13:25

Eric Gershon

Jim Voss has been to space five times. He can handle the Houston-to-Boulder commute.

Jim Voss is no stranger to work travel.

In one two-year stretch, he flew monthly between Houston and a job site in Star City, Russia, near Moscow.

That wasn’t even extreme: As a NASA astronaut, Voss (MAero’74; HonPhD’00) circled Earth more than 550 times during five Space Shuttle missions.

He spent 201 days in space, 163 as a resident of the International Space Station. In 2001, he and a crewmate floated outside it for 8 hours, 56 minutes, setting the record for longest spacewalk.

Now 69 and three times retired and unretired, Voss continues traveling long-distance for work. Since 2009, he’s been teaching in �� Boulder’s aerospace engineering program, commuting twice a month from Houston, where his wife, Suzan, still works for NASA.

Usually Voss flies Southwest Airlines to Denver. But every few months he pilots himself in one of two small aircraft he owns, a single-engine, four-seat Cirrus SR22 with tan leather interior. He’s also got a two-seat Rutan Long-EZ experimental aircraft he built himself.

“There are never traffic jams,” he said in a June interview at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, where he keeps both aircraft in a meticulously organized hangar adorned with the flags of �� Boulder and Auburn University, his undergraduate alma mater.

Voss enjoys flying for most of the usual reasons: The views, the solitude, the sense of freedom. He also likes the technical challenge and convenience.

On “Voss Airlines,” he said, “there’s no rush, no schedule.”

Commuting by plane also gives him a chance to practice something he does for fun anyway. He’s flown over the Grand Canyon, up and down the Hudson River, past Mount Rushmore and to the Bahamas. He once took the Long-EZ all the way to Alaska.

One year, en route to Oshkosh, Wisc., for the Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual fly-in, he took a detour to Dayton, Ohio, to check out the Air Force museum there.

Astronaut, Pilot, Professor

Name: Jim Voss (MAero’74; HonPhD’00)
Trips to space: 5, last in 2001
Shares record for longest spacewalk: 8 hours, 56 minutes (2001)
Started teaching at ��: 2009
Lives: Houston and Boulder
Travels between them: Twice a month
Trip takes: 5.5 hours in his Cirrus SR22
Voss’ other airplane: Rutan Long-EZ experimental aircraft
Years he spent hand-building it: 13
Likes: Tiny airports

And when his wife joins him in Colorado, he’ll pilot her and friends to a favorite vacation spot in Durango.

In Boulder, Voss and airport pals fly in formation to Fort Collins, Steamboat Springs and Greeley for lunch at little airport restaurants.

From time to time, Voss, who averages about a flight a week year-round, takes his aerospace graduate students for a spin.

Voss learned to fly more than 40 years ago, as a hobby. He later attended Naval Flight School, becoming a flight test engineer, a person who helps establish an aircraft’s capabilities.

Though it was never his job to pilot the Space Shuttle, Voss logged enough Shuttle time to appreciate why the commanders usually came from the ranks of the military’s elite test pilots. Upon reentry to Earth’s atmosphere, the Shuttles, which went out of service in 2011, moved blazingly fast and on an unusually steep path to the runway.

“You can’t afford to make a mistake,” he said.

In 1981, before becoming an astronaut, Voss began building the Long-EZ, following a design by legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan. Given work obligations that often kept him away from home, it took him 13 years to finish the fiberglass-and-foam plane.

But it never felt like work, he said.

“This is fun for me,” he said during a break from his annual piece-by-piece inspection of the Long-EZ.

On the day the Coloradan visited, he was planning to reinstall the nose gear.

“I take good care of my airplanes,” he said. “My life depends on it.”

Voss began commuting by aircraft in 2003, while teaching at Auburn, near his hometown of Opelika, Ala. Flying in the Long-EZ was less of a hassle than taking a commercial flight to Atlanta or Birmingham, then driving two hours to Auburn. He was going almost weekly.

He bought the Cirrus in 2004. Faster and safer, it’s got a full-aircraft parachute for dire circumstances. Fortunately, he's never had to use it.

While teaching at ��, Voss has mostly been commuting on commercial airlines. It’s less expensive than using his own plane, and more reliable — commercial airliners can handle weather Voss wouldn’t risk.

Being a passenger is also less taxing: As pilot, he said, “You have to pay attention all the time.”

When Voss flies himself from Texas to Colorado, he steers a diagonal course northwest from Houston, across Texas and the Oklahoma panhandle, into Colorado, then north. He’ll stop at Dalhart, Tex., or Amarillo for lunch and gas. In the Cirrus, the trip takes five-and-a-half hours.

As much as Voss enjoys flying, he’s looking forward to the 2019 opening of the new aerospace engineering center on East Campus. It’s less than a mile from his Boulder condominium.

“I’m gonna walk,” he said.

Contact Eric Gershon at editor@colorado.edu.

Photos by Glenn Asakawa

Jim Voss has been to space five times. He can handle the Houston-to-Boulder commute.

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From Free-Throws to F-35s

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 15:31:00 +0000

From Free-Throws to F-35s Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/01/2018 - 09:31

Christie Sounart

Tucker Hamilton and Aaron Frey are test pilots for the U.S. military’s most sophisticated fighter jets ever. Their journey together started in middle school.

Two F-35 fighter jets zoom over the Pacific Ocean. The pilots, charged with completing a live missile test, are focused, confident and prepared. Even in a test mission, lives depend on it.

They’re not alone. A fleet of aircraft, boats and about 100 control room communicators follow their every move on this summer day.

A pair of missiles fires from one jet, striking their targets: Airborne drones. The other F-35, armed with its own missiles, holds fire amid the explosion. The moment — painstakingly calculated and rehearsed — simulates the highly complex air-to-air scenario F-35 pilots could encounter in real combat. All total, the day’s mission costs $1 million.

Air Force Lt. Col. Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton (AeroEngr’02) and Marine Maj. Aaron “Amber” Frey (AeroEngr’02; MS’03), were the pilots that day, in August 2017. They first met at Evergreen Middle School in Evergreen, Colo. Later, they reacquainted as fellow aerospace engineering majors at �� Boulder, and again — nearly 25 years later — as two of the U.S. military’s ace test pilots.

The F-35 jets, based at California’s Edwards Air Force Base, are considered the most sophisticated military fighter jets in history, and the Defense Department’s largest ever acquisition program, at more than $1 trillion. Hamilton and Frey are among some 20 total test pilots for the F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter. For their August missile test last year with the 461st Flight Test Squadron, they were two of just 13 pilots who could have flown the mission.

Hamilton uses one word for their repeated encounters in life: “Serendipity.”

“Being able to develop the most advanced aircraft to ever take to the skies, with one of my buddies from middle school, was a complete kick,” he said.

As 13-year-olds, Hamilton and Frey attended the same birthday parties and played on the same basketball team. Hamilton was a forward. Frey played guard.

“As I recall, he was a little taller than I was,” Frey joked.

The boys from Evergreen lost touch after enrolling at different high schools, then reconnected in Air Force ROTC and aerospace engineering classes during their first semester at �� in 1998.

In 2002, they again went separate ways and lost contact: Frey stayed at �� for a master’s degree in aerospace engineering; the Air Force commissioned Hamilton the day of graduation.

Hamilton, then a lieutenant, moved to Florida, completed pilot training with the Navy and, later, the Air Force, and became a combat-ready F-15 fighter pilot. After a stint in Germany, he spent time in Afghanistan with the MC-12 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft unit. His interest in engineering, technology and flying drew him to apply for test pilot school. In 2011 he was among 10 pilots selected to train at Edwards to become a F-35 test pilot.

“I wanted to develop leading-edge technology and get it into the hands of our warfighters,” he said.

Meanwhile, after briefly working on satellites in the private sector, Frey joined the military, in 2004.

“I always was interested in flying airplanes and the military,” he said. “When I was working as an engineer, I realized, ‘If I want to do this, I need to do this now.’”

He joined the Marines, became an officer and deployed to Afghanistan twice, flying combat missions and serving as an instructor pilot. While in Afghanistan in 2012, he too was accepted into the Edwards test pilot school.

When Frey arrived in California for training, Hamilton had just finished the program. The two passed each other in a hallway.

“Fast-forward to 2012, 10 years nearly to the day [from �� graduation],” said Hamilton, now married with four children. “And I’m walking through the U.S. test pilot school about to graduate, and Aaron Frey walks by in his Marine flight suit.

“I said, ‘Dude what are you doing here?!’”

The two briefly caught up. They’d both known danger.

In early 2008, for instance, Hamilton was involved in a 500-mph, mid-air collision with another jet during a F-15 flight over the Gulf of Mexico. Flames engulfed his plane, and he ejected into the ocean. The other jet’s pilot died instantly. Hamilton floated in the ocean, alone for hours, until a 25-foot fishing boat rescued him.

But Hamilton remained a pilot, and became an advocate for new safety measures. He was the first pilot to test the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System on fighter jets — technology that corrects an airborne plane in an emergency. It has since been installed on several aircraft and saved eight lives so far.

“I know the experience made him a better pilot,” said Frey, who’s encountered frightening situations of his own.

“Managing risk is part of the job.”

In 2016, four years after their hallway meeting, Hamilton became director of operations for the 461st Flight Test Squadron, which tests all three variants of the F-35 fighter jets: The F-35 A, for conventional takeoffs and landings; B, for short takeoffs; and C, for landing on aircraft carriers. Frey’s name was listed as a test pilot with the squadron.

“I didn’t realize Cinco was in my squadron,” said Frey. “I walk in and, again, there he is!”

The F-35s — made by Lockheed Martin — are top of the line, with technologies, weapons, sensors and equipment never used before.

Endless scenarios for each variation need testing by the squadron. Hamilton and Frey have tested all aspects of each variant of the single-seat planes.

“I will go take the jet to over 800 mph at 2,000 feet, pulling 9 gs making sure the system is safe and works,” said Hamilton. “It’s our job to take it to the extreme.”

Today, Hamilton remains commander of F-35 developmental test efforts at Edwards, leading nearly 1,000 people. In October, Frey, a married father of twins, was promoted to operations officer of the Marine Operational Test & Evaluation Squadron 1 at the base. He tests the F-35s in extreme military scenarios, such as landing an F-35B in frigid temperatures in Alaska.

“Our wives know each other, our kids play together,” said Frey. “Once you’re squadron mates, you really stay in touch for the rest of your life.”

Photos by Chad Bellay

Tucker Hamilton and Aaron Frey are test pilots for the U.S. military’s most sophisticated fighter jets ever. Their journey together started in middle school.

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A Buff Forever in Flight

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:00:00 +0000

A Buff Forever in Flight Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/01/2011 - 00:00

Beth Phillips

After more than 9,000 flight hours and 60 years as a pilot, James Patton Jr. (Aero’56) landed at the end of his career where he first took off — on the plane of his childhood dreams.

Jim retired from NASA after 21 years in 1987. Too restless to stay on the ground, Jim continued flight-testing until officially retiring in 2002. His last project brought him full-circle at age 74, testing the Boeing-Stearman Model 75 that his childhood heroes of World War II flew.

“It was a great way to exit stage left,” he says.

Growing up in Texas, airplanes fascinated him. His first plane ride at age 7 solidified his dreams. Jim built his career by “playing airplane,” a humble way of describing this 2009 inductee into the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame, a fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and a pilot who purposely maneuvered his aircraft into over 8,000 spins.

Jim flew in the Navy for six years. Armed with the GI Bill, he moved to Boulder to attend ��. He lived with other ex-Naval aviators in a house on 11 acres on South Boulder Road. A Siamese cat named Smoky came with the property. During the week Jim studied and on the weekends he flew.

“I only took aeronautical engineering to be around airplanes,” Jim says. “We had a lot of scenery, but a lot of work was involved,” he says.

After graduating he accepted a position with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). There Jim tested airplanes with unrecoverable spins and realized no guidelines existed to ensure effective spin recovery. The FAA sent him to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, an opportunity he describes as “the tipping point” in his career.

That opportunity led Jim to what he calls “the best flying job in the world” — a position at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., as chief research pilot and head of flight operations. He developed the NASA Spin Program, spurred by his realizations at the FAA. The program lasted more than 14 years during which he developed spin-resistant airplanes, improved flight training, wrote over 100 technical reports and collected data still used by universities. Ultimately, aircraft manufacturers adopted NASA’s recommendations, a decision Jim says has “undoubtedly saved lives.”

At age 82, Jim misses flying. He fills that gap by volunteering and finding satisfaction in helping others. Looking back, Jim offers sound advice.

“Be persistent,” he says. “Don’t give up knocking on the door. When the door finally cracks open, be ready and prepared.”

After more than 9,000 flight hours and 60 years as a pilot, James Patton Jr. landed at the end of his career where he first took off — on the plane of his childhood dreams.

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