Skyward provides customers with a comprehensive set of support services for conducting test and evaluation programs. Skyward works with the client on a daily basis to ensure an effective test and evaluation program strategy is created, all key issues and requirements are identified, all key players approve the strategy and requirements, a detailed test and evaluation plan is developed, and the test program is run efficiently and effectively to achieve test objectives.

 

Skyward can assist customers with liaison support, instrumentation requirements, 3D scanning and reverse engineering, test article and test fixture design and analysis, pretest predictions, on-site data collection, repair planning, and post-test analysis.

Skyward provides customers with expertise in organizing, analyzing, and archiving data to provide required answers and preserve data for future needs.  This includes Design of Experiments (DOE), comparison analysis with pre-test predictions and post-test data, performance evaluation and system effectiveness, vulnerability identification, data gap analysis, and database development.  Skyward can utilize validated high-fidelity modeling and simulation to expand the data set.  We use a variety of tools to analyze and document results, including DPlot, Design Expert, JMP, Kaleidagraph, and a variety of video and still image analysis tools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our experience includes analysis of:

• Fire and explosion vulnerability
• Fire extinguishing agent and device effectiveness
• Warhead characterization
• Thermal degradation of composites
• Structural joint robustness
• Safety analysis
• Ballistic live fire vulnerability
• Ballistic threat characterization, performance, and lethality
• Crew casualty

Skyward ensures test and analysis results are fully documented to answer customer questions and assists the customer in presenting the results to their technical community in a variety of forms. We assist our customers with Quick-Look Reports, detailed technical reports, journal articles, technical presentations, social media, and release of results in numerous multi-media formats. Skyward also ensures the data is protected, as required, assisting customers with addressing Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), classified, export control, and proprietary issues. Skyward also develops reports for technical studies, surveys, historical data evaluations, and numerous other customer requirements.

Skyward has supported Live Fire Test & Evaluation (LFT&E) and Joint Live Fire (JLF) efforts for nearly a quarter century. Skyward personnel have supported LFT&E since the inception of the law (Title 10 U.S.C. Section 2366) and JLF since the inception of the program. Further, Skyward personnel have been involved in the development and execution of nearly every Air Force vulnerability LFT&E program and major Air Force-involved JLF program, and have been intimately involved in survivability evaluations of nearly every operational and developmental fixed wing aircraft within the Air Force in the last 30 years.

Skyward has also supported LFT&E and JLF programs for Navy and Army air vehicles. Skyward personnel experience also includes Army ground vehicle LFT&E. Skyward has also supported numerous Joint Aircraft Survivability Program (JASP) projects, studying the efficacy of vulnerability reduction measures and the development of test & evaluation and modeling & simulation tools. Skyward has supported these programs at a number of different test facilities, gaining an understanding of test capabilities, test procedures and processes, and test safety and security protocols.

Skyward assists customers in planning for and analyzing data from a variety of munitions characterization testing. These test & evaluation efforts may address penetration capabilities, fuzing, accuracy and miss distances, blast pressures, fragmentation and debris, velocities, and data collection enhancements.  Skyward expertise includes Man-Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS) missiles, anti-aircraft artillery, small arms, Rocket-Propelled Grenades (RPGs), proximity-fuzed missiles, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), mine blast, non-lethal and other specialized munitions. Skyward has also assisted in evaluating directed energy threat effects.

Skyward uses Design of Experiments (DOE) statistical analysis to improve test and analysis program planning, perform more informed pretest predictions, produce higher quality test data, and enable greater confidence in the conclusions generated from testing. Skyward uses DOE principles and practices to develop test matrices during testing planning, optimizing the required number of tests to save costs, while ensuring the factors examined are most likely to provide the greatest information obtainable.  Skyward has been implementing DOE methods in ballistic live fire testing and in developing predictive tools derived from experimental results. Examples of these efforts have included the analysis of ballistic munition functioning and fire ignition and sustainment potential. The use of DOE and advancements in high-speed video capability has expanded the investigation of this complex phenomenon. Skyward has developed techniques from these tools to maximize the lessons learned from testing to assist in developing the Air Force Next Generation Fire Model (NGFM).

Applying DOE methods to test results, enables Skyward to maximize the knowledge gained from the testing and confidence in the conclusions. It also enables the validation of statistical models and highlights areas requiring improvement. The updated model is then, in turn, utilized with higher confidence over a wider area of input parameters and the combination of model and test data provides a better overall picture of the evaluated system’s response.

Skyward also uses statistical analysis as a quality control process, ensuring that data outliers can be thoroughly explored. This often leads to improvements in test methodologies or the recognition of test areas requiring further exploration.

Skyward has significant experience in analyzing video and still imagery to extract relevant data and in developing protocols for streamlining and standardizing data analysis. This experience includes ballistic data analysis; Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) imagery analysis; and data collection and analysis using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ballistic Data Analysis:

• High-speed video analysis to characterize ballistic threat flash/function and fire ignition, threat flash/function duration, threat velocity, threat fuze delay, fragmentation flyout, real-time component/system failure analysis, fire duration, fire extinguishing agent effectiveness, and more
• Digital still imagery analysis to document test and combat incident data
• Imagery Analysis Product Development

ISR Data Analysis:

• Personnel background in Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) and Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) forensic analysis, theater and tactical-level imagery operation, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Wide-Area Motion Imagery, Full-motion video analysis, UAV/UAS sensor operation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UAS Data Analysis:

• Disaster preparedness and response
• Runway inspection following attack to support airbase resiliency
• Analysis of environmental hazards to the earth’s vital natural resources
• Search and rescue