United States Air Force Academy

Go to home page

Aeronautics Research Center

A cadet prepares an airfoil for a wind tunnel experiment.

The Aeronautics Research Center in the Department of Aeronautics seeks to provide every Aeronautical Engineering cadet with a meaningful research experience, employing projects supporting customers in the Air Force, DOD, other government agencies and commercial partners. The center makes use of the USAFA Aeronautics Laboratory, the best-equipped aeronautics facility in all of academia.

It is complemented by a broad range of faculty and researcher expertise in aerodynamics, flight control, propulsion and flight test. These capabilities combine to produce highly motivational cadet learning experiences, quality research products for the customers, and faculty/researcher technical currency.

Take a 360-Degree Virtual Tour
Core Competencies
  • Low & High Speed Aerodynamics
  • Combustion & Propulsion
  • Aerospace Structures
  • Design and Test of Small Unmanned Aerial Systems
  • Aircraft Design, Modeling, Control, and Simulation
Major Projects
  • Demonstrated aircraft adaptive control via flight experiment
  • Developed hypersonic turbulent boundary layer management techniques
  • Implemented active flow control actuation for aircraft primary flight control
  • Characterized crippling strength of battle damage repaired aircraft structures
  • Performed wind tunnel evaluations of aerodynamic stability performance of multiple aircraft concepts
Contact Us

Dr. Matthew Munson
Director, Aeronautics Research Center
(719) 333-2613
matthew.munson@afacademy.af.edu