AFMC Command News

New Air Force chief scientist has AFMC ties

  • Published
  • By Janae' Daniels
  • Arnold Engineering Development Center Public Affairs
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  Dr. Werner J.A. Dahm will begin his assignment as the new Chief Scientist of the Air Force in October, replacing Dr. Mark Lewis. While his post will be at the Pentagon, Dr. Dahm has a connection with Air Force Materiel Command.

Dr. Dahm was a research engineer from 1979 to 1981 at the Arnold Engineering Development Center here. Initially, he worked in the Propulsion Wind Tunnel's 4-foot transonic analysis branch, first as a graduate from University of Tennessee Space Institute working on his master's degree and then as a full-time employee of Arnold Research Organization, the operating contractor at that time. Dr. Dahm later worked for Calspan when it took over the contract.

Dr. Dahm said that working here was a great experience.

"AEDC is one of the best places that a young aerospace engineer can work," he said. "The experience I gained at AEDC has always stayed with me and gave me a perspective few in the academic research community have.

"I look forward to supporting (Air Force) Secretary Michael Donley, (Air Force Chief of Staff) Gen. Norton Schwartz and the Air Staff in making sure the Air Force gets the most it can from its investments," he continued. "The unique capabilities of AEDC will be an important part of this."

Most of his work at AEDC dealt with high-incidence missile aerodynamics, especially the AMRAAM missile, where AEDC was providing analytical support to wind tunnel tests and computational simulations. Dr. Dahm also worked with adaptive wall wind tunnel development, where AEDC was developing instrumentation techniques for control surface measurements. He supervised a series of test of this instrumentation in the 1-foot supersonic tunnel.

"In all of these projects, it was great to bring together the analytical work we were doing
with the 'real world' environment of wind tunnel testing and data analysis," he said.

As chief scientist, Dr. Dahm will be the principal science and technology adviser to the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. The chief scientist provides assessments to the Air Force leadership on a wide range of scientific and technical issues that affect the Air Force mission. He is a member of the executive committee of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and works in coordination with the Air Force Research Laboratories and the nation's industrial and university research communities to address issues relevant to the Air Force.

"As chief scientist I will be looking for ways to help AEDC ensure that its facilities and other capabilities can be used to maximize their impact on the operational capabilities of the Air Force," he explained. "Another thing I want to do is to help bring the Air Force research and development community and its operational community closer together.

"Doing so will help the science and technology community better identify where they can have operational impacts that may have gone unnoticed and also help the operational community become more aware of what science and technology can potentially do for them."

Dr. Dahm admits this is a uniquely exciting time to serve as chief scientist due developments in the Air Force over the past year.

"The Air Force is facing some tremendous challenges and helping bring the science and technology perspective into some of the pending decisions is an enormous opportunity and is very important for the Air Force," he commented. "The Air Force is asked to do an enormous range of things and to be prepared for a set of possible future conflicts that spans a far broader range than ever before. The mission has never been harder."
According to Dr. Dahm, science and technology will need to play a very important role in the next decade, probably more so than ever.

"The Air Force is undeniably the most dependent of all the services on technology to accomplish its mission," he explained. "Helping the Air Force get the most out of its research and development investments is really what the job of chief scientist is all about."