Insights into Streamlining Flight Operations

Carrie Haase is the chief pilot at Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing Company. Carrie oversees the company's aircraft operations, maintenance, and flight tests in this role.

Carrie joined Aurora in 2003 and has held a variety of positions in program management, UAS system development, flight testing, and flight operations. Early in her career, Carrie played a key role in the development and flight test of several of Aurora's unmanned aircraft programs, including the GoldenEye family of vehicles. She has served in the program office for the GoldenEye and CH-53K system development programs and as program manager for the Centaur Optionally Piloted Aircraft program. As chief pilot, Carrie has overseen such flight test programs as Aurora’s Personal Air Vehicle (PAV), Centaur, Small UAS programs, numerous surrogate testbed programs, and NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration project.

Carrie holds a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, a Commercial Pilot's Certificate, a Flight Instructor Certificate (CFI), and a Remote Pilot Certificate. She is a native of the west coast, having lived in Alaska, Washington, and California before relocating to Virginia in 2001. She lives in Falls Church with her husband and two children, and she enjoys spending her personal time on a nearby family farm, volunteering with a local Scouts troop, or flying.

Integrating New Technologies Addressing the Challenges Your Business Faces in Meeting Its Requirements for Flight Operations

The strategic integration of autonomy features into our flight operations allows us to improve safety, reduce pilot workload, and increase data quality. By automating the basic functions of an aircraft, the flight crew has more capacity to focus on the system being tested. We also see quality improvements in that we can ensure that tests are repeatable and that we are analyzing the technology rather than the operators.

“Prioritize Safety, and Never Compromise Safety for Expediency. Make Safety a Non-Negotiable aspect of Every Decision and Operation”

Through human-machine teaming, we can augment a pilot's abilities in flight, which is valuable not only in our test operations but also for customers out in the field. Creating a partnership between humans and machines can deliver a better outcome than acting alone. Autonomy can add an element of redundancy to increase safety, and it can allow for more complexity, thus increasing the number, breadth, or duration of tasks that can be completed during each mission.

Share Your Experiences from Successful Initiatives or Strategies Implemented to Streamline Flight Operations

Not all testing happens in the air. We are streamlining flight operations by improving the fidelity of ground testing. Thorough vetting of hardware and software integrations on the ground has enhanced safety and proven to be cost-effective.

For example, Aurora’s hardware-in-the-loop simulator (HILSIM) enables testing of autonomous behaviors and other new technologies using the same hardware and people as in a live flight test. So, by the time we get to the actual flight, we’ve already proved out the hardware and software integrations, making the process faster, safer, and more cost-effective.

Challenges in Your Business That Current Services Are Unable to Solve

We are starting to implement automated analysis of real-time test data, and this is an area where we see a lot of room for advancement in the industry. Traditionally, we would have to analyze flight data after landing. Real-time analysis allows us to complete additional test points in a single flight. With this technology, we can seamlessly progress from one test point to the next, making our testing processes much more efficient.     

Real-time analysis is rooted in developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence. There is still so much untapped potential in the use of AI and ML. We are continuing to explore innovative ways to harness this technology for more advanced real-time analysis.

Advantages Stand Out to You as Having the Greatest Impact When Flight Testing Operations Are Vertically Integrated with Aircraft Design Engineering

The integration of flight-testing operations with aircraft design engineering offers significant advantages. With flight testing as an integrated part of the design-test cycle, we can incorporate the learnings of flight tests earlier, when it’s easier and more cost-effective to make changes. Early identification and resolution of any potential issues minimize the need for rework and optimizing resources and timelines. Through integration, we are also able to accelerate the design-test cycle, taking new designs and revisions into simulation or into the air quickly and delivering fast feedback to the engineering team. This same functionality drives continuous improvement cycles, resulting in more reliable, mission-ready aircraft.

Advice, Suggestions, and Warnings to Professionals in Your Similar Role Working In Other Companies

There are essentially three pieces of advice I’d give to others in the industry:

1. Prioritize safety, and never compromise safety for expediency. Make safety a non-negotiable aspect of every decision and operation.

2. Stay up to date on emerging technologies. Adaptability to new advancements is crucial for staying ahead in the industry.

3. Don’t lose sight of the human element and how humans intersect with this technology. Through human-machine teaming, we find ways to augment, rather than replace, a pilot’s abilities via interactive teamwork between humans and AI agents.