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[ Music ]

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>> My earliest interest
in science really stemmed

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from my love of nature and
the outdoors and wanting

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to understand why the world
worked the way it worked

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and why animals did the
things that they did.

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My parents recognized
pretty early

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on that I was a very curious
kid, and did their best

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to encourage that, and I was
lucky enough to have teachers

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who also instilled and
fostered that curiosity in me.

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My name is Erin Waggoner,
and I'm an aerospace engineer

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in the aerodynamics

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and propulsion branch,
and I work for NASA.

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So, I got into engineering,
and then I ultimately went

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and majored in aerospace
engineering

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at Wichita State University
and minored in math.

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Because I knew I ultimately
wanted to end up at NASA someday

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for my career, I
applied to be a co-op

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through the school's
co-op office.

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The boom was very faint
across the entire carpet.

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So, I ended up getting picked
up by NASA Armstrong and I came

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out here sight-unseen.

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I absolutely loved
the work I was doing.

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I started out on SOFIA, and the
I had the luck to go over to CEV

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and then X-48, so I got to see a
lot of the very unique projects

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that were coming through
here in the early 2010s era.

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And, I got a call, just before
I was graduating from college,

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with a formal job
offer from here,

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and it was my dream come true.

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Essentially, my job
entails everything

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from planning a flight
test all the way

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through executing a
fight test and looking

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at the data afterwards.

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My current project is the
acoustic research measurement,

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or ARM-3 flights.

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ARM-3 uses a large
microphone array that's set

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up in a spiral pattern called
a beam-forming microphone array

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to measure aircraft noise off
of a G-III, and essentially,

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what we're doing is trying to
measure aircraft noise and look

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at aircraft noise
mitigation measures.

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So, we have various fairings
and flaps and cavity treatments

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that we've put on the
airplane, and we're trying

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to see what the effect
of those treatments is

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on the overall noise
signature of the airplane.

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>> Three, two, one, mark.

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>> The beam-forming array is
also called an acoustic camera.

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It gives you a picture of
an airplane that looks a lot

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like a heat map, if you've
ever seen a heat map,

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but in the picture of the
airplane that we end up getting,

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red is noisy, or
loud, instead of hot.

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So, we can use this to tell
where the noisiest parts

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of the airplane are, and we can
use this to figure out if any

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of our mitigations
have been successful,

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and to what extent they
have been successful.

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>> [inaudible] copy.

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Let's go ahead and
move to 165, gear up.

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>> Two zero.

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>> During an ARM flight, the
G-III flies, essentially,

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an approach over the
microphone array.

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>> Three, two, one,
descend, two point three.

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>> Well, before they
reach the array,

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the pilots have throttled
back the engines so that it's

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as quiet as possible, from
an engine perspective,

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while they're over the array.

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We also have them fly at
various different airspeeds,

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and with various
different flap deflections,

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because that will affect
the noise signature.

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So, on the other side
of the sound barrier,

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I do more acoustic research on
the supersonic side of things.

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It's not a boom that happens
once, or it's not a boom

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that happens once or twice,
in that a lot of people think,

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"Okay, so I've sped up.

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I've broken through
this sound barrier.

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It's gone.

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I'm no longer producing a sonic
boom, and then when I slow down,

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and I brake through
it the other way,

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now I'm going to make a boom."

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It's really not like that.

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It's more like a wake on a boat,

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so as long as it's
moving supersonically,

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or over the speed of sound,
you're going to continue

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to drag, effectively, a wake
of a sonic boom with you

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through the air that
will reach the ground.

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I've worked on SonicBAT
recently, and that was a test

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to look at how sonic
booms propagate

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through a turbulent atmosphere.

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During that project, I had the
privilege to fly in the TG-14

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and record the sonic booms
between where they were produced

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on the aircraft and where they
were recorded on the ground.

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The rationale behind
using the TG-14 is it's

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because it's a motorized glider,
so the engine can be turned off

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and on in the middle
of a flight,

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and it's a very quiet aircraft.

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So, the F-18 would
produce the boom

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from a very specific location
and at a very specific airspeed.

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The TG-14 would record the
boom as it had propagated

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through the atmosphere prior to
it hitting the turbulent layer,

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and then the microphone arrays

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on the ground would have record
how that sonic boom sounded

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on the ground after it had gone
through the layer of turbulence.

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The way I describe
engineering now is

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that you have this giant
puzzle, and you have

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to follow some rules in
order to solve your problem,

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but the only rules that you have
to follow are physics and math.

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And, if you follow
physics and math

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and you can find the
right technology,

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you can solve any
problem you want to solve.

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>> Go on up.

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>> I mean, ultimately,
I just feel very blessed

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to be able to work here.

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That's what I wanted.

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You can't let anybody
define your path for you.

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>> Six flight copy, clear
takeoff [inaudible].

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>> You have to have the
confidence in yourself to go

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after your goals and to
go after your dreams,

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and you can't let
those people deter you.