Establishment and History of the Georgia Tech Graduate Program in Aerospace Systems Design

In January 1984, the Georgia Tech School of Aerospace Engineering (AE) hired Dr. Daniel P. Schrage as the Rotorcraft Design Professor and the Associate Director of the Georgia Tech Center of Excellence in Rotary Wing Aircraft Technology (CERWAT), one of the Army-sponsored Rotorcraft Centers of Excellence (RCOE). Dr. Schrage left St. Louis, MO at the end of 1983 as the Director for Advanced Systems (DAS) and the Associate Director of Army Aviation Science and Technology in the Aviation Research and Development Command (AVRADCOM). His departure was a tough decision for Dr. Schrage as he was designated to become the Technical Director of the new Aviation Systems Command (AVSCOM). However, the new AVSCOM motto was "Readiness Immediate and Development Eventual," which, as it turned out, meant that new Army Aviation Systems would not be developed for the next 35 years. Dr. Schrage was also recruited by Bob Lynn, Bell Helicopters VP Engineering, as the Bell Helicopters Director of Technology, with a promotion to VP Engineering upon Lynn's retirement in the next few years. This was one of the most challenging decisions of his life for Dr. Schrage and his family, as they had to move from their home in O'Fallon, IL - a great town and home for his growing family.. In addition, his wife Nancy's parents and his mother and sisters, all lived within a half hour from his home. His father, Albin, had passed away while we were moving to the St. Louis Area following his MSAE graduation from Georgia Tech in May 1974. When he arrived at Georgia Tech in January 1974, he started teaching the Rotorcraft Design Courses, which were similar in content to what he had developed in AVRADCOM and to what Dr. Dick Carlson taught at Stanford U. He also developed and taught design courses in his two weeks each year in the Department of Mechanics at USMA West Point during his reserve duty from 1978-1983. He continued in the U.S. Army Reserves and taught two weeks at USMA until 1996. He then retired as Colonel in the USAR in 2004. He used a computer-integrated environment and the top-down design decision support process taught at West Point. This provided a Framework for using Systems Engineering Methods for Product Design Driven and Quality Engineering Methods for Process Design Driven, as illustrated in Figure 1. Value-based Acquisition decision-making is a lost art in Digital Engineering and other attempts to produce effective and affordable systems. The Army FARA Contract termination in 2022 was primarily due to lack of Development Assurance Value Based Acquisition (DAVBA) (Ref. 1).