2025 Update

 LSE continued to thrive in 2024 and 2025.  A couple of new contracts were in the mix, both completed and closed out by the end of this past summer.  The NAVAIR support contract remains the primary source of activity. 

Over the years I've participated in numerous R&D efforts that produced some preliminary results, and either died right there or went forward another step or two before stalling out.  A few, though, resulted in products that were fielded. The most rewarding of these were all in military aviation, with a few commercial products mixed in. It's a great feeling to climb up in an airplane or helicopter and see something that I helped design being used by aviators.  The work for NAVAIR on the P-8A acoustics is fielding several products, and I've been able to be directly involved in the design of those products and in developing the training for those products.  Those are good feelings, and it's nice to be part of a great team.

There's a different kind of good feeling that is generated when you do something - analysis, test and evaluation, or some combination of the two - that helps prevent a bad idea (or at least a bad design) from being fielded or otherwise going forward.  There's nothing to go look at on the flight line and take pride in.  But there is some sort of satisfaction in knowing that something ineffective (at least), wasteful (in some cases), or perhaps dangerous, was ended. 

A highlight of the past couple of years was a project that required me to be onsite at PAX River for many weeks in the spring and early summer of 2025.  The project began at the end of the summer of 2024, with the creation of a plan for evaluation.  Then after some preparatory work, the evaluation began in the spring of 2025. The results of the evaluation were negative, in the sense that the project should not go forward to another phase.  So it's an example of an activity that didn't produce anything you can see, but that did produce a much needed dispositive result. 

To perform this evaluation, I needed to be there onsite so much that it made sense for me to rent a place rather than stay in a hotel so many nights.  I was quite lucky, and found a place right on the Patuxent River, near Solomons.  What a wonderful place with such a great view!  This was my view from the back deck of the house. 

I really enjoyed being there. I had nice neighbors and my work colleagues (friends) came over for happy hour or dinner many evenings. I stayed over for a few weekends too. The work was intense, the schedule a bit hurried, but the overall experience was very positive and quite memorable.