SAWE’s scholarship awards are making a difference in the successful career development of member’s children and grandchildren. We don’t often get this type of follow up feedback from scholarship recipients. It’s rewarding to know more about the career paths of the students.
Sean Greiner, an SAWE Scholarship recipient, recently sent SAWE the following message:
“I
wanted to extend my sincere appreciation for supporting me throughout my
undergraduate career at Clemson University. I recently graduated in May and am
continuing on in my education as I seek a medical degree from the Medical
University of South Carolina. Words cannot express the difference that your
scholarship has made in my education.
Because of your financial support, I was able to devote significant time to experiments
in a DNA repair lab at Clemson. The work that I have done, in concert with many
other lab members, will be published in scientific journals in the coming years
and we hope will significantly add to our knowledge about DNA repair pathways
and metastatic melanoma.
Thank you again for your support.
Sincerely,
Sean Greiner”
John Hargrave, President, replied:
Sean, SAWE would like to
congratulate you for your recent graduation from Clemson. We appreciate your thoughtfulness in sharing
news of your accomplishments and future plans with us. It’s great to know more about you as an SAWE
scholarship recipient and the direction of your career path.
We wish you the best in all of your future endeavors. SAWE membership is very proud of you and we’re honored to have participated in your career development.
SAWE is partnering with the Society of Aircraft Performance and Operations Engineers (SAPOE) to generate a recommended practices (RP) document that will produce standards for the development of standard average weights to be used in passenger carrier operations.
The FAA has recently released Advisory Circular 120-27F Weight and Balance Control. Revision F deviates most significantly from previous versions of AC120-27 in that standard weights for passengers and bags are no longer specified. The AC provides guidance to the operators stating that passenger and bag weights should be calculated based on (1) use of Center for Disease Control National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (for body weights) and (2) use of surveys (for body weights where NHANES data are not appropriate and for all bag weights).
The reluctance of the FAA to publish results in AC 120-27 allows for a possibility for inconsistent application of statistical methods. The major problem with the AC is that it will lead to varying and inconsistent practices and assumptions among different carriers, as a result of the desire to have each operator responsible for development of its own standard weights. Analysis of the CDC NHANES data for body weights and design, execution and analysis of bag surveys are highly technical tasks requiring personnel with specific skill sets. Variability due to inappropriate application of methods and even due to pursuing an opportunity to obtain a competitive advantage will result in nonsensical standard weights. For example, the same passenger and their bags will be assumed to have different weights on each airline they fly.
To address these concerns, SAPOE created a “Tiger Team” in January 2017. The Tiger Team’s primary focus is to develop standards to be used in (1) analysis of CDC NHANES body weights, and (2) construction of checked and carry-on baggage surveys. Engineers from Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, Allegiant, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, American Airlines, NetJets, American Aeronautics, Boeing and Airbus have been involved as Tiger Team members. The Tiger Team has been meeting regularly with the following planned activity:
• Publication of an industry standard weight for passengers and bags
• Development of the industry standard weights to be accomplished using agreed-upon methods
• CDC NHANES data analysis will be published for body weights (unclothed) – a fresh NHANES survey is due to be published this fall
• Carry-on and checked bag weights will be surveyed by participating operators.
• Data will be shared and SAPOE members will have access to results
• Standard average weights and best practices documentation (user guidance) will be published by SAPOE (format to be determined)
• Work with FAA to revise weight & balance program Op Specs (A096/A097/A098/A099) to accommodate the necessary changes
• Work with SAWE to create a Recommended Practices standards document
If you are interested in working on this project – data collecting, data analysis or development of the RP, please contact Mike Byham at michael.byham@aa.com.
It is with regret we pass along the passing of a Hampton Roads SAWE member on June 20, 2019. Information on his career, involvement in SAWE, services to be held on August 3rd and 4th in Yorktown, VA and Charlottesville, as well as his obituary are posted to the HR website https://www.sawe.org/hamptonroads/2019/06/30/sawe-hr-member-ian-mac-macconochie-obituary/
The
SAWE is proud to be able to confer recognition to our members via the
presentation of awards. These awards are
handed out at the conclusion of the International Conference at the Awards
Banquet. The basic categories are:
Membership Awards; Paper Awards; President’s Awards; and Publication Awards.
MEMBERSHIP AWARDS
There
are four categories of Membership Awards, which are determined by a multi-step
process that begins with a person receiving a nomination for a award and
continues with an assessment by the Awards Committee consisting of Honorary
Fellows. The Awards Committee presents
the year’s prospective awardees to the Board of Directors, who vote on each
nominee, and then those who receive the Board of Directors approval are
revealed at the Awards Banquet and receive their Award.
This
year, we honored three individuals for their continued and sustained service to
the SAWE. The Board of Directors
approved the elevation of two members to Fellow and one to Honorary Fellow.
Fellow Awards
Fellows are those who have achieved Distinction in Mass Properties Engineering or who have Materially Contributed to the advancement of the Society. .
The first member elevated to Fellow was Ms. Amanda Cutright. Amanda was co-chair of the 78th Annual SAWE Conference, was an SAWE Outstanding Young Engineer in 2011, nominated for Outstanding Young Engineer of the Year by the Peninsula Engineering Council in 2012 and INCOSE in 2013. Ms. Cutright was the mass properties lead for the Orion MPCV Pad Abort 1 Flight Test and has been lead system engineer on multiple programs. She has authored 3 papers, including one SAWE paper, and starred in an SAWE podcast.
2019 SAWE Fellow Amanda Cutright
The Board of Directors also approved the elevation of Mr. Nicholas Marickovich to Fellow. Nick works at Newport News Shipbuilding where he has received two Shipbuilding Excellence Awards (2011 and 2018), and in a feat of endurance has hiked over 2000 miles on the Appalachian Trail and written a paper describing the mass properties aspects of this endeavor. Mr. Marickovich has served in the Hampton Roads Chapter as Secretary and Director. More significantly, Mr. Marickovich served as Deputy Vice President of the SAWE for Publications, and has now taken over the role of Vice President – Publications.
2019 SAWE Fellow Nick Marickovich
Honorary Fellow Awards
Honorary Fellows are those who have achieved Eminence in Mass Properties Engineering or have made Outstanding Contributions to the advancement of the Society.
This year, Mr. Errol Oguzhan was raised to Honorary Fellow status. Errol has chaired/co-chaired two SAWE International Conferences, in 2001 and 2017. Mr. Oguzhan was instrumental in integrating Training into the International Conference curriculum and is a major reason for many mass properties practitioners to come to conferences. Mr. Oguzhan chaired a committee that is looking at ways to increase technical interchange while lowering costs to members who attend or would like to attend conferences. Mr. Oguzhan is our incoming SAWE Senior Vice President.
2019 SAWE Honorary Fellow Errol Oguzhan
PAPER AWARDS
The
SAWE evaluates every paper submitted, and assigns a numerical rating to each
paper. This numerical rating is used to
determine which paper or papers deserve special commendations. For Student Papers, the top three papers
receive a cash prize along with their certificates. Other paper submissions vie for the Best
Paper Award, named for founding member Mike Hackney. In special cases, a Special Merit Award may
be given for an outstanding paper. This
year, in Norfolk, two papers were granted Special Merit Awards.
Student Papers
First Prize – $1,000
University
of Colorado Team – Marcos Mejia, Alexander Sandoval, Alexis Sotomayor, Ashley
Montalvo, Brandon Santori, Brindan Adhikari, Colin Chen,Junzhe He, Michely
Tenardi, and Quinter Nyland – Paper S3725 HERMES: Hazard Examination
Reconnaissance Messenger for Extended Surveillance
Second Prize – $750
NASA
Space Habitat Intern Team – Maxwell
Devoe (University of Albany), Ariel Tokarz (Georgia Institute of Technology),
and Samuel Park (University of California San Diego) – Paper S3726 Toolchain
Integration for Space Habitat Design
Third Prize – $500
NASA
Intern – Brittany Johnston (Old Dominion University) – Paper S3730 Path To Be
An Engineer
3rd Place Student Paper – Brittany Johnston
Mike Hackney – Best Paper Award
Anjie
Emmett – Paper 3710 Application of The Law of Propagation of Uncertainties To A
Weight And CG Measurement System
Special Merit Award
Colin
MacFarlane and Manuela Bucci – Paper 3719 Modernising Ship Stability: Lightship
Evolution Diagnostics With In- Service Stability Measurements
Special Merit – Manuela Bucci
Special Merit Award
Giorgio
Previati and Federico Ballo – Paper 3727 Trifilar Pendulum:
Non-Smalloscillations And Calibration
Special Merit – Giorgio Previati
PRESIDENT’S AWARDS
2019 President’s Awards (L-R: Damian Yanez, Robert Zimmerman, Yi-Ling Tam, John Hargrave)
Zimmerman – VP Technical
The VP-TD authored several blog and journal entries with the expressed intent on encouraging the SAWE membership to continue to excel and inculcate the Mass Properties message within their communities and companies. A new, easy-to-use PowerPoint Template was issued to bring uniformity and readability to our visual presentations – for this I would particularly like to thank Mr, Doug Fisher of the San Diego Chapter for his excellent aid in developing this template. Other authoring duties were shared with Honorary Fellow Alan Titcomb in distilling the results of the Mass Properties Survey into a concise presentation that can be used by our members to help receive backing for mass properties activities within their organizations. Also assisted me with writing the letter to the over 200 leaders of industry and government organizations informing them of what SAWE was doing to address the risks and opportunities in mass properties discipline. In appreciation, SAWE President would like to recognize his service to the organization and mass properties community.
Damian Yañez
SAWE
as the Director of the Southeast Chapter.
As one of the original authors of the 2000 revision to the SAWE
Engineering Handbook, Damian saw the need to once again step up and upgrade
this key document. By converting the
decades-old handbook text and tables to the current Standards and Practices’ MS
Word Template, he improved the accuracy, legibility and consistency of the
Handbook, and made it much more conducive to future upgrades. His efforts also provided a mentoring
opportunity to get new members involved with SAWE, and to familiarize them with
our SAWE technical resources. Damian
acted as the project leader, chief editor of the entire document, and
conversion author for several sections.
This effort involved hundreds of hours of his personal time. Damian also recruited other members to assist
in this endevour:
Peter Stubbers
Ross Campbell
Dell Ruff
Thomas Tanner
Luis Alberto Lopez
We
look forward to Damian and his expanding team’s final result planned for release
next May of 2020, where we will fully acknowledge the completed efforts of this
team’s two-year commitment. In
appreciation, SAWE President would like to recognize Damian’s leadership and
service to the organization and mass properties community.
Yi-Ling Tam and John Hargrave
President
Bill Boze appointed this special committee as a result of the 2018 Mass
Properties Survey, with Yi-Ling Tam as the chair and John Hargrave as the
co-chair. In December 2018, Yi-Ling and John attended a two-day American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) seminar to learn what was required to
achieve ANSI accredited personnel certification, in accordance with the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 17024 standard.
The
committee was expanded in February to include: Clint Stephenson, Andy Schuster,
Dan Rowley, John Nakai, Jeff Cerro, Robert Zimmerman, and Darren Gamble. With Yi-Ling’s and John’s leadership, they
and their committee
Reviewed and assessed the ANSI/ISO
requirements.
Performed a gap analysis revealed that about
150 new policies/procedures would be required to be written
Created a certification scheme to ANSI/ISO
requirements
Established sub committees
Conducted a 2019 marketing survey of our
community of SAWE members & partners
And briefed us at this conference on Monday of
their activity and plan going forward.
The
SAWE President would like to recognize their service to the organization and
mass properties community.
Publication Awards
Best Website award: Los Angeles Chapter
The
LA Chapter website had good aesthetics, had been updated recently, and all the
links presented were functional. A good
example for any chapter getting ready to start or update their website.
2019 Best Website Award (Yi-Ling Tam, accepting)
Best Journal Article: Making a Thriving Career in Mass Properties
Engineering, by Robert Zimmerman
This
article appeared in the Winter 2019 edition of Weight Engineering (Vol 78 Issue
2). This very well written, highly
recommended article contained advice for the Mass Properties Engineer at any
stage of their professional life.
Every
year the SAWE conducts an International Conference on Mass Properties
Engineering. This is a major undertaking
and requires support from our officers, the host committee, and from our
Corporate Partners, Conference Sponsors, and Vendors. Our Vendors and Sponsors host booths and give
presentations during the conference.
These presentations allow conference attendees to experience the
products and services our vendors and sponsors provide to the Aerospace, Marine,
Offshore, Land and Allied industries.
However,
only a small proportion of SAWE members are able to attend a conference. Therefore, these presentations reach only a
small portion of their potential audience.
Starting with the just concluded 78th International
Conference on Mass Properties Engineering held in Norfolk Virginia in May, the
SAWE will be making these presentations available to all who visit our
website. It is our sincere desire that
these presentations will aid our members in making decisions as to what
products and services they choose to enhance their company’s products and the
members’ capabilities as mass properties practitioners.
The
2019 Vendor and Sponsor presentations are available on the SAWE website at:
Please
visit this page and learn what resources are available for your own use as an
engineer and for your projects which require mass properties control.
The NASA STEM Educator Professional Development Collaborative (EDPC) is hosting a webinar that will feature and upcoming Orion flight test, mass properties, and give educators tools to further engage, excite, and teach K-12 students about the role of mass properties in mission success! Please share this event with educators and teachers you know that would enjoy this opportunity!
Synopsis: Explore Moon to Mars: Orion’s Ascent Abort-2 Flight Test
This summer, NASA plans to conduct the Ascent Abort-2 (AA-2) flight test. This milestone event will verify flight capabilities of Orion’s Launch Abort System (LAS), a key step in fulfilling NASA’s mission to go back to the Moon and then on to Mars. During this free 60-minute webinar, educators will have a chance to hear from anOrion flight test engineer about AA-2 and the critical role mass properties plays in spacecraft design. This webinar will also highlight NASA resources and hands-on activities for engaging your students with Orion and AA-2 (webinar addresses NGSS PS1, PS2 & ETS1).
Presenters
Amanda Cutright – Orion Flight Test Management Office
Kristyn Damadeo – Langley Public Affairs Office
Rosemary Smith – Langley Office of STEM Engagement
Anne Weiss – Langley Office of STEM Engagement
Dates/Times
Thursday, June 13, 2019 (5-6 PM Eastern; 2-3 PM Pacific)
Wednesday, June 26, 2019 (5-6 PM Eastern; 2-3 PM Pacific)
Please join us for the “Explore Moon to Mars: Orion’s Ascent Abort-2 Flight Test” webinar and also learn about another opportunity regarding professional development credit via a Digital Badge titled “Balancing Act – Spacecraft Mass Properties”!
At the kickoff of Standards and Practices Day at the 2019 International conference in Virginia, I talked about donuts.
An internationally known chain of donut shops noticed their sales dropping. To find out why, they asked their customers if there was a problem with the donuts. The answer was no – the donuts were as good as ever. But sales kept dropping. Then the donut shop asked a different question: what do the customers think of their donut shop experience? The response surprised them: the donuts were great, but the coffee was bad. That’s something the owners had not considered: get better coffee, sell more donuts. And it was only learned because the donut shop asked an open-ended question, allowing the customers to communicate what was important to them.
SAWE Recommended Practices (RPs) are a vital resource available to a wide range of customers. Mass Properties Engineers refer to them. Companies and government agencies require their use. But there are significant gaps in what our RPs cover. As the new Vice President of Standards and Practices, my role is to shepherd the development of new RPs and the revision of existing ones to ensure they stay relevant to our customers.
But what to do first?
At the International conference I asked all of the Industry Committees to emulate the donut shop and ask their customers what is important to them. Understanding their customer priorities will allow the Industry Committees to know which RPs to focus on and will motivate them to complete their tasks on time.
My call to action is this:
By the end of 2019, each Industry Committee should document their customers’ needs, the Committee’s priorities, and the time-based plans to create Recommended Practices which support their customers’ needs.
This does not mean that all current work should stop. A small number of RPs, such as those being converted to ANSI standards, have been identified by the SAWE executive as high priorities and should continue to be worked. I have asked the Industry Committees to review and update the development schedule for each of these to ensure they will be published on time to meet the customer needs.
Developing and updating Recommended Practices is a vital part of ensuring the SAWE remains a professional society relevant to our industry needs. The Industry Committees need volunteers to help with this important work. If you wish to help out, please contact me at standards@sawe.org.
RP G-1, Mass Properties Control for Ground Vehicles, is currenlty under public review until June 15, 2019. The link for the public review site is below. Comments can be made at this same site.
The SAWE and the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) recently held internal polling of the authors of ANSI/AIAA S-120A-2015, Mass Properties Control for Space Systems, who voted to reaffirm this standard for another five years. This standard and recommended practice apply to space vehicles, upper stage vehicles, injection stages, payloads, reentry vehicles, launche vehicles, and ballistic vehicles. This standard is intended to convey minimum requirements applicable to space system development.
Public comments are now sought by July 29, 2019. Send all comments to Hillary Woehlre at hillaryw@aiaa.org.
The SAWE International Conference just held by the Hampton Roads chapter was very nice and informative. Thanks to all (Corporate Partners and Company Members, host committee, individual participants, etc…) involved in making it happen.
I enjoyed both the Aerospace and Marine sessions as it allowed me to maximize my technical intake having to choose between many topics of interest. It would be nice if the SAWE can continue to offer multiple tracks at these conferences. That means individuals writing papers. Start forming your ideas now as I’d wager the content at this conference spurred many to the thinking “how can I use this experience to write about an experience of my own”.
I also enjoyed getting reacquainted with my fellow SAWE-ers in person. Whether being invited to a meal, chatting about life / work / SAWE in the hospitality suite, or enjoying one of the outings together like the dinner cruise, there are always smiling faces there to greet you, and even wish you well on your journey forward once the conference is done. As new Executive Director Bill Boze states, face to face interactions provide lasting memories.
Best Wishes as we approach our American holiday Memorial Day. I’m going to take the time to recharge, spend time with family, and maybe even grill an award winning hamburger. Afterwards, I will get back to the business of SAWE.
My Executive Vice President membership and projects team will be in touch with your chapters. We need to kick off the remainder of the year focusing our efforts on the goals of building up your chapters through membership and project support. This will support goals of your region as well as goals of the society laid out by new President John Hargrave.
I look forward to a prosperous 2019-2020 SAWE year.
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