NASA Advisory Council Aeronautics Committee Meeting 

November 21-22, 2019 

National Institute of Aerospace 

Hampton, Virginia 

Welcome 

Mr. John Borghese, committee chairman, called the two-day meeting to order and 

welcomed everyone. He introduced new committee member Mr. Peter Bunce and then 

offered Mr. David Throckmorton, vice president of research for the National Institute of 

Aerospace, an opportunity to say a few words as the host organization. 

Mr. Throckmorton provided an overview of the Institute’s operation, noting they are a 

non-profit research and graduate education organization originally created as a partner 

for NASA Langley Research Center employees to pursue graduate education 

opportunities, as well as being a research partner to Langley and providing educational 

public outreach. 

Ms. Irma Rodriguez, NAC Aero Committee executive secretary, provided some opening 

housekeeping remarks, including reminding everyone of federal ethics regulations 

regarding special government employees as they apply to NAC Aero meeting activities. 

Mr. Borghese recognized that Mr. Bob Pearce, NASA’s associate administrator for 

aeronautics, was in attendance and invited him to say some words of welcome, which 

he did. The chairman then reviewed the committee’s responsibilities in terms of 

providing findings and recommendations and what distinguishes the two. 

A briefing on current research operations at Langley and some of the goals of that work 

followed, presented by Center Director Mr. Clayton Turner. During the briefing, 

committee members asked about the potential use of the Aircraft Landing Dynamics 

Facility in testing new electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles built with composite 

materials, as well as NASA’s ability to continue to attract top talent to work at Langley 

and provide continuing education and professional growth to existing employees. Mr. 

Turner responded with positive answers to the questions but cautioned that only will 

continue if NASA’s work stays relevant to the nation’s aeronautical needs. 

NASA Aeronautics Transformation Planning 

Mr. Jon Montgomery, NASA Aeronautics’ deputy associate administrator for policy and

planning, provided an overview and update of the mission of NASA’s Aeronautics 

Research Mission Directorate (ARMD). His focus was not on describing specific 

technical goals, but rather on answering the general question the committee posed 

during its July meeting that asked, “how do you actually accomplish what you are 

doing?”

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Mr. Montgomery reviewed the history of how the ARMD Strategic Implementation Plan 

came about and what were the influences that inspired that strategy in the first place. 

He also described some changes in aviation that have resulted during the past few 

years as new trends and industry players have emerged. He said that while the global 

drivers the plan is based on have not changed, these new trends have prompted a 

somewhat small re-evaluation of the plan’s six strategic thrusts. (To download a copy of 

the 2019 edition of the plan, please visit https://www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch/strategy.) A 

larger course correction in NASA Aeronautics’ strategic plan is anticipated in the 2021 

timeframe. 

Mr. Montgomery described how ARMD’s programs and projects support the six

strategic thrusts, how they manage specific research in short- and long-term bites, and 

how they work from an organizational management perspective with NASA’s four 

aeronautics research centers, each of which has its own aeronautics research director 

(ARD) to interface with ARMD at NASA Headquarters. 

Dr. Eric Allison asked how funding is distributed down through the field centers and how 

research is managed given this operational paradigm. Mr. Montgomery explained how 

the answer is different depending on the center, the program or project, the scope of the 

work, and other variables. He stressed that success is dependent on the program 

managers at NASA Headquarters working as a team with the four center ARD’s. 

Mr. Montgomery also explained the relatively new idea to ARMD of managing largescale efforts by designating them as missions and employing a mission manager to 

coordinate activities across multiple projects, programs, and centers. Dr. Allison noted 

this is what is known in management theory as a “three-dimensional matrix 

organization.” The first of these is the Low Boom Flight Demonstration mission with Mr. 

Peter Coen as mission manager. 

Mr. Borghese asked if collaboration tools are in place to support managing a mission in 

this way and if measures are in place to ensure everyone who is working remotely from 

others feel like they are part of the team. Mr. Montgomery and other NASA 

representatives assured the committee during the discussion that followed that such 

tools and measures were in place and effective. 

Dr. Mike Francis asked some questions that prompted a brief sidebar discussion on 

autonomy and how that can be more aggressively addressed within the organizational 

structure, especially from the perspective of managing programs and projects across 

multiple centers. Mr. Montgomery noted that discussion continues, and autonomy will 

be a focus of the new Advanced Air Mobility project. 

Dr. Francis later reiterated his strong desire for the NAC Aero committee to receive a 

briefing on the subject of autonomy, especially from the perspective of machine 

intelligence, specifically “how NASA’s going to take on the leadership role connecting

this important area to aeronautics.”

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Mr. Montgomery talked about ARMD’s communications strategy and the importance of 

informing stakeholders and the public about NASA’s accomplishments in aeronautics.

Key goals are to make sure audiences understand what NASA Aeronautics is doing, 

that the work is valuable, and that it can be transitioned to industry to benefit the public. 

He noted that current key themes revolved around major research areas such as 

enabling commercial supersonic air travel, Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and success in 

demonstrating airspace management systems for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (drones), 

and ongoing work to support the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in contributing 

technology and systems to the Next Generation Air Transportation System. 

Finally, Mr. Montgomery discussed NASA Aeronautics’ strategy to engage its 

government, industry, and academic partners to make sure ARMD is focused on the 

right work, to support the transition of NASA research to its partners, and to make sure 

the work remains relevant. 

Discussion 

This topic prompted a significant discussion with the committee regarding NASA’s 

involvement with its partners in helping to determine industry requirements and/or 

standards, and then passing that data along to the FAA to use in the certification of new 

hardware, systems, and/or procedures – especially in areas such as UAM. 

During the deliberations portion of the meeting, as it relates to carrying out the strategic 

plan with its six thrusts, significant discussion centered around NASA’s research 

facilities, who is using them, how are they being maintained, who is paying for what 

maintenance and services, what is the distribution of facility time between NASA and 

external entities, etc. The result is a list of topics desired for a future NAC Aero meeting, 

as noted later in these minutes. 

System-Wide Safety Assurance 

Mr. John Koelling, NASA’s System-Wide Safety (SWS) project manager, and Dr. Misty 

Davies, SWS deputy project manager, briefed the committee on this topic. Chairman 

Borghese noted this would be the committee’s third briefing on the subject, the most 

recent one having taken place more than two years ago. Since then, a study of NASA’s 

work on SWS by the National Academy of Sciences was published. It can be accessed 

at https://www.nap.edu/download/24962. 

The presentation focused on four technical challenges (TCs) the project has committed 

to working: 

TC-1 Integrated Terminal Risk Area – Will require the ability to take in a large amount of 

data, process that in near real time so any safety issues can be identified and 

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addressed in time before something happens — summarized for this challenge and all 

others as monitor, assess, and mitigate. 

TC-2 In-flight Safety Predictions for Emerging Operations – Will attempt to determine 

recommendations for minimum data requirements and standards of the architecture 

necessary to mitigate risks. 

TC-3 Validation and Verification for Commercial Operations – This challenge deals with 

the software tools industry can use to help them meet certification requirements. NASA 

is attempting to determine the dollar value of these tools to industry while also being 

more proactive in sharing these tools and being responsive to change requests as 

appropriate. 

TC-4 Complex Autonomous Systems Assurance – Will develop a preliminary 

certification process for autonomous systems that include machine learning or artificial 

intelligence components. 

Discussion 

Discussion within the presentation and during the formal period of discussion for this 

topic prompted comments and questions from the committee, not all of which could be 

immediately answered as they are part of the research being conducted. 

Committee members wanted to know what does “in-time” mean? How soon, how lastminute will the algorithms be designed to assess and mitigate potential trouble? 

Answers will depend on what is considered acceptable risk, acknowledging that 

targeted levels of safety could be different based on use cases. 

For example, you could say we don’t care about situations in which low-end, 

inexpensive drones are lost due to a technical failure because they are cheap and can 

easily be replaced. But when that inexpensive drone crashes into a kindergarten 

playground or it was carrying an expensive cargo of diamonds, then the way you value 

the level of risk and investment in the complexity of the autonomous safety system gets 

more complicated. 

Mr. Pearce noted that NASA Aeronautics has a long-term commitment to this topic as 

evidenced by its inclusion as a strategic thrust. So, as these individual TCs are met, 

research will continue as it will take a long time to achieve the ultimate vison in this 

area. 

When it comes to UAM, NASA must be able to merge both design and operations in 

certifying autonomous systems. Research in these areas cannot be done separately; at 

some point, they must be considered together. To demonstrate this, ARMD is beginning 

to consider a series of Safety and Resiliency Capability Level activities. 

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During the presentation, the subject of partnerships through the Small Business 

Innovation Research program was discussed. While most frequently associated with 

NASA’s space programs, ARMD has some experience with this means for partnering 

with industry. The discussion prompted an outcome to include this as a topic for a future 

briefing with NAC Aero. 

Dr. Karen Thole asked about sharing data and tools and noted differences in what 

NASA and industry is able to do in terms of keeping some information available only to 

U.S. entities, whether that be within industry or the public or internationally. Mr. 

Montgomery provided information about NASA’s role in this and described some of the 

limitations imposed upon the agency either by contractual language dealing with 

proprietary information or by law. 

Dr. Francis expressed his desire that NASA Aeronautics provide more information on 

autonomy directly from the researchers it considers to be leading this effort with ARMD. 

Mr. Scott Drennan then asked about who NASA is working with externally. Ms. Davies 

mentioned that DARPA and AFRL were the two largest ones. 

Mr. Borghese commented that while the committee has received briefings on the topic 

of autonomy in the past, those briefings may have been too top level and what the 

committee needs is a briefing that describes with more detail what NASA is “really” 

doing. 

Additional discussion on tools used to verify and validate autonomous systems – both 

for UAM in particular and SWS in general and their accessibility to external-to-NASA 

users – followed and resulted in the finding listed below. 

Although not included in the wording of the finding, Mr. Borghese suggested the 

committee wants a presentation on software tools, including their use in simulations and 

test capabilities, as well as specifically what tools are available and how are they 

accessed. 

Mr. Bunce asked that NASA develop a graphic for UAM that showed how many pieces 

of NASA (facilities, programs, projects, etc.) are working on it, what companies are 

working on it, how are they distributed throughout the nation – something similar to what 

Mr. Coen showed during his briefing on supersonics. 

Finding 

The Committee finds that NASA ARMD has made significant progress with the System 

Wide Safety project enjoying early success with regard to strategic thrust #5: In-time 

System-Wide Safety Assurance. More specifically, the Committee suggests that as 

NASA continues to build and use new software tools to develop a safe and robust 

system in support of Urban Air Mobility, the agency ensures it is purposefully making 

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those tools as widely known and available online and other venues as possible 

consistent with maintaining U.S. competitiveness. 

Supersonic Market Developments and Low Boom Flight Demonstration Status 

Mr. Coen provided an overview of the Low Boom Flight Demonstration mission, 

including its history, strategic rationale, organizational structure, and current status of 

the mission in terms of recent work on practicing community response methods in 

Texas and construction of the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology aircraft in California. 

During the presentation, questions generally covered two themes. 

First, how can NASA be sure it will be able to gather community response data that is 

statistically valid and unbiased? Many different potential influences on the data were 

suggested and discussed. Mr. Coen noted that ensuring the data is valid and useful to 

the FAA and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to consider rule 

changes is the top priority and every effort is being made to be confident in success. 

Second, several committee members expressed concern that by focusing on the sonic 

boom noise issue, other significant concerns related to supersonic flight – emissions at 

altitude, landing and takeoff noise, operational affordability – are not getting the same 

levels of attention. 

NASA representatives and other committee members answered by discussing the 

strategy – namely that a commercial supersonic air travel market cannot happen unless 

the sonic boom noise rules are changed. It is a single, binary barrier for the rest. 

NASA’s limited resources to tackle all the issues simultaneously also was an influence.

Committee members expressed their concerns about the impact of schedule delays on 

the mission, noting that unexpected issues are common with a one-of-a-kind supersonic 

aircraft like the X-59, and the need to be sure data availability is in alignment with the 

Committee of Aviation Environmental Protection’s every-three-year’s schedule. Mr. 

Coen noted that such issues are anticipated, and plans are in place to mitigate those 

“known unknowns” as best as possible.

Discussion 

During deliberations there was discussion about the X-59’s external vision system

(XVS) with regard to the FAA’s involvement in certification (NASA is self-certifying its 

use on X-59) and its potential availability to industry to use in commercial operations. 

Mr. Borghese offered that an update to the Low Boom Flight Demonstration mission 

take place during the fall NAC Aero meeting and that it includes a focus on the XVS. 

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Finding 

The Committee finds that NASA’s focus on using the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic aircraft to 

gather public response data that will aid regulators in changing the current rule that 

bans supersonic flight over land is the correct one. The Committee suggests NASA 

seek additional expertise from other trades in developing the methodology by which 

objective public response to the X-59 community overflights will be gathered and 

analyzed. 

Although the X-59’s propulsion system is not part of the data gathering, the Committee

also urges NASA to be ready to respond to public queries regarding environmental 

effects of jet engines used for supersonic flight and how NASA research may help 

industry mitigate those effects. 

Topics for the Work Plan 

1. NASA Aeronautics Facilities – The committee would like to better understand the 

spectrum of physical and virtual capabilities available for aeronautical research. 

Among the committee questions: 

a. How does industry learn about what facilities are available? 

b. What is required to gain access to these facilities? 

c. How much lead time is necessary to arrange use of the facilities? 

d. Of those programs now using the facilities, what is the distribution of 

internally and externally funded programs? 

e. How is research related to Urban Air Mobility using existing facilities and 

what other types of facilities are still needed? 

f. With these new types of vehicles planned to be operated in the thousands 

within the next decade, is there a need for a new effort on crashworthiness 

to update existing tools? 

2. Small Business Innovation Research – How does NASA Aeronautics benefit from 

this program? What is the return on investment? 

3. NASA Developed Software – How are software research tools made available for 

others to use, including topics of access awareness, distribution restrictions, 

licensing, and any other controls or issues that impede their widest possible use? 

How is NASA working to overcome any of these barriers? 

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List of Attendees 

Committee Members Dr. Richard Wahls 

Dr. Eric Allison 

Mr. John Borghese Other 

Mr. Pete Bunce Ms. Asha Balakrishnan (remotely -

Mr. Scott Drennan Health Science Committee) 

Ms. Lisa Ellman (remotely) Mr. Brian Harvey (remotely - B&A 

Dr. Mike Francis (remotely) Associated) 

Mr. Michael Hirschberg Ms. Cat Hofacker (remotely -

Mr. Anil Nanduri (remotely) AeroSpace) 

Dr. Tom Shih Mr. Mitchell Lee (remotely - Committee 

Dr. Karen Thole on Science, Space & Technology) 

Mr. James Lockner (remotely - USRA) 

NASA Mr. David Throckmorton (NIA) 

Ms. Vanessa Aubuchon (remotely) Dr. Ray Young (NY VAS Test Site) 

Ms. Sharilyn Brown 

Ms. Melissa Carter (remotely) 

Dr. John Cavolowsky FedWriters (Meeting Support) 

Mr. Brent Cobleigh Mr. Jim Banke (remotely) 

Mr. Peter Coen Ms. Abigail Casas 

Dr. Misty Davies 

Ms. Mary DiJoseph 

Mr. Jay Dryer 

Ms. Mijahla (Jae) Eadon 

Mr. Shawn Engelland (remotely) 

Ms. Michelle Ferebee 

Ms. Dana Gould (remotely) 

Dr. James Kenyon 

Mr. John Koelling 

Mr. John Koudelka (remotely) 

Mr. Paul Krasa 

Mr. Clayton Meyers (remotely) 

Mr. Jon Montgomery 

Mr. Lee Noble (remotely) 

Ms. Lori Ozoroski 

Mr. Bob Pearce 

Ms. Cheryl Quinn (remotely) 

Mr. D. R. Reddy (remotely) 

Mr. David Richwine 

Ms. Irma Rodriguez 

Mr. Patrick Shay (remotely) 

Mr. Akbar Sultan 

Mr. Clayton Turner 

Mr. Steven Velotas 

Dr. Ed Waggoner 

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