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Tinker hosts AF science advisers

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  • By John Parker
  • Staff Writer
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, OKLA. --  The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board held its spring meeting at Tinker AFB last week, bringing together some of the nation's top scientists and engineers who advise the Air Force on maintaining its technological edge.

The 50-member board toured Tinker operations, met in classified study sessions with base experts and conducted board business April 20 to 23.

Created in 1944 during World War II, the Scientific Advisory Board studies cutting-edge technological issues each year and reports to Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh III.

This year's studies focus on three areas: cyber vulnerability of embedded systems in air and space craft, enhancing the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in contested theaters and assessing the prospects for how next-generation quantum systems, including computers, might benefit the Air Force.

"These are all complex topics and the picture doesn't begin to gel until the whole group has been discussing and listening and learning, and then it really comes together," SAB Chairman Dr. Werner Dahm said. "We're at that point right now where the studies are turning the corner from fact-finding to figuring out what are the major recommendations we're going to make to the secretary and the chief, so it's an exciting time for the board."

Dr. Dahm said he was "blown away" years ago when he visited Tinker sustainment and logistics operations as the Air Force chief scientist. He said he pushed for this year's meeting to take place at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex headquarters.

"When I became chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, I felt strongly that scientists and technologists who are making recommendations on future capabilities and systems for the Air Force need to have an understanding of the maintenance and sustainment aspect of those systems," the chair said.

"You can't get that from PowerPoint, and you can't get that from reading articles. To see it is amazing."

Dr. James Chow, a senior engineer at the RAND Corp., chairs the panel on the cyber vulnerabilities of embedded systems, which are the onboard computers that affect flight control, radar and other key functions on Air Force air and space craft.

Dr. Chow said a base visit helps board members better understand how systems and technologies are integrated into the Air Force's daily operations.

"We're trying to think about technologies and scientific solutions that can help the Air Force's problems, and we really need to understand what the context is when we develop these," Dr. Chow said.

"Visiting places like Tinker is critical. Cyber vulnerability is a life cycle issue, to include the sustainment side, so it's really interesting and important to get a detailed perspective of the tools and processes used here."

Lt. Gen. Bruce Litchfield, Air Force Sustainment Center commander, briefed board members on AFSC management strategies about cost-effective readiness and the AFSC Way.

"The use of modern business optimization processes and the payback in dollar terms that have been saved for the Air Force as a result is truly amazing. Board members were hugely impressed by that," Dr. Dahm said.

The advisory board is part of a large and deliberative process in the Air Force to ensure the secretary, chief of staff and heads of the major commands have the information they need to make the best possible decisions on technology, Dr. Dahm said.

"Our role is to help them have an accurate picture of what is technologically possible and what the risks are, what the relative maturities of those technologies are and what the possible countermeasures to those technologies would be," Dr. Dahm said.

The board's efforts complement research performed at the Air Force Research Laboratory and other Air Force organizations, "but we come from outside the Air Force," the chairman said. "We don't have any dog in the fight except that we want to make the U.S. Air Force the best Air Force possible."