Aero100

Samuel (Matt) Vance, BSAE 1980, Senior Researcher/Flight Instructor

Hello fellow U of M Aero Engineers !!
In Jan 2014 I transferred into a job that I never thought I would have and am very much enjoying the experience – I am teaching professional pilot flight courses in Saint Louis University’s (SLU) FAR PART 141 flight program. I have the direct responsibility to impart both knowledge and professional attitudes to my/our students and am finding this both professionally challenging and rewarding.
Last spring I also completed a PhD in Aviation Science here at SLU. My dissertation was focused on the perceptions and requirements that passengers would place on fully autonomous airline travel. Read More »

Richard Passman, BSE Aero 1944, BSE Math 1946, Mse Aero 1947, General Manager in GE Aerospace Group

Seventy years after my BSE in Aero, I have coauthored and had published a book for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum about the X-15, the World’s Fastest Rocket Plane and the pilots who ushered in the Space Age. I have had a long and successful career in Aeronautics, thanks to a great education at the U of M . I recall being taught by Felix Pawlowski in his later years, and protecting him in the wind tunnel from the propellers in the tunnel that were being tested. My fondest memories relate to the courses taught by Dr. Arnold Martin Kuethe that gave me the tools and the interest in supersonic aerodynamics that characterized my activities on the X-2 and X-16 while at Bell Aircraft.

Patricia Angle (Kelly), BSAE 1996, MSAE 1998, PhD Student

I met Matt Angle ’96 in 1995, when I stopped to chat with a mutual friend, Emillio. We became fast friends and eventually married, in 2003. We now live in Georgia and have two beautiful sons. He works for Lockheed Martin as an actual, by-gosh, aerospace engineer. My degree took me from consulting to education to business school, where I am now. Maya Lin may not have intended this, but the Wave Field is a really nice place to steal a smooch and begin a future with a cute aerospace engineering student.

David Redick, BSE-ME 1958, Test Eng., Sales, Management

I started in June-1958 as a Field Eng. trainee for liquid propellant (kerosene RP-1, and liq oxy) rocket engine firm Rocketdyne (a div. of No. American Aviation) at the engineering and manufacturing site in Canoga Park, CA, and their development test site in the Santa Susana mountains 20 mi NW of there (west end of San Fernando Valley). The test stand shot the engine exhaust downward into a water-cooled deflector. We dumped a lot of fuel and triclorethylene there and the about 700 acre site is now abandoned and cannot be cleaned-up! Ugh. Read More »

Roger Slykhouse, BSAE 1981

When I started at UM, I knew I wanted to study Computer Engineering, and had decided not to study Nuclear Engineering. I had a work-study allocation, and ended up working in the hypersonic tunnel with Prof. (Pauline) Sherman in Aero and her husband Prof. (Noah) Sherman in Physics to process the data. (The idea of a wind tunnel powered by a big balloon blowing on one end and nine railroad tank cars sicking on the other end just seemed like too much to miss.). I also took the Aero150 course, which included a segment on Aero conducted by Prof. Buning. These two experiences together piqued my interest in the Department enough that I decided to do a double. Read More »