Experience

CAE

• Canada
• Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing
• 700 & Above Employee

• Senior Software Analyst

  • Mar 2021 - Present



GGM

• 1 - 100 Employee

• Software Analyst

  • May 2020 - Mar 2021



Plane Sciences

• Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

• Senior Software Analyst

  • Sep 2018 - Apr 2020

  I wrote geospatial software for Airspace Analysis around airports and restricted air spaces. Recently, I developed Required Navigation Performance (RNP) software for approaches to airport runways, which output KML files for visualization in Google Earth. As you can see, there are many RNP approach corridors into Calgary airport. RNP is especially useful in low-visibility weather and in mountainous terrain. RNP approaches make it safer for aircraft to land, and helps Air Traffic Control (ATC) too. When an aircraft lands in Calgary, my software determines if the aircraft is following an RNP approach or not, which approach it's on, and how accurately the aircraft is flying it. The aircraft's flight path (orange) follows the RNP approach corridor (blue) to runway 17L. Each RNP corridor is designed to have smooth turns and gentle descent rates. Show less



CAE

• Canada
• Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing
• 700 & Above Employee

• Subject Matter Expert (SME)

  • Aug 2007 - Sep 2018

  In the 1990's, I was contracted to write animation software for the National Research Council (NRC) and Transportation Safety Board (TSB) that animated aircraft accidents, as a way to present large amounts of data in an understandable and intuitive format. We only had instrument data, aircraft position and attitude, and other parameters; so we animated the aircraft in a 3D window in real-time and synchronized the other parameters with the aircraft. At CAE, I was the Subject Matter Expert (SME) of a small team (5 people) who integrated our debriefing system into a CAE training center for the US military. In 20 years things have improved greatly, and our debriefing system could: - animate the aircraft in a 3D window in real-time - display many more recorded instrument parameters - animate the actual terrain they flew over in high-resolution 3D - display the altitude profile of the aircraft's flight - display aeronautical charts & maps with the aircraft's flight path - synchronize two high-resolution video feeds with the 3D animation - synchronize multiple microphone audio feeds with the 3D animation With ALL this visual and audio information presented in an intuitive interface, it allowed the instructors and student pilots to debrief minutes after landing, using the actual data from their training flight - while fresh in their minds. This capability allowed BOTH instructor and students to understand EXACTLY what had occurred in their training flight, including which controls had been changed and when. By moving forward and backward in time, instructor and students could QUANTITATIVELY review their training thoroughly, efficiently, quickly & easily. They absolutely loved it! Show less



NAV CANADA

• Canada
• Airlines and Aviation
• 700 & Above Employee

• Software Analyst

  • Feb 2002 - Sep 2017

  At NAV CANADA, I was contracted to develop the Radar Analysis Debriefing System (RADS). RADS is used to analyze incidents where aircraft have a Lose Of Separation (LOS), which means the aircraft get too close to each other. RADS reads radar data files, calculates the separation distances between each pair of aircraft, and displays this information in a 3-Dimensional interactive animation. RADS also synchronizes the audio of ATC communications with the animation, and if a transcript of the ATC communications is available, displays that too. Presenting these elements (animation, terrain, audio, transcript) in space and time allows analysts to identify HOW and WHY an incident has occurred. The RADS animation is then presented to many different stake-holders to improve safety. To quote NAV CANADA's web-site: "RADS provides investigators, managers, executives, regulators, air crew and controllers with a highly realistic animation of an incident, accident, or any air occurrence." With everyone viewing and analyzing an intuitive 3D interactive incident together, people from many diverse backgrounds can agree on what happened, why it happened, what recommendations are needed, and how to move forward. This information is disseminated to the ATC and aviation communities to improve safety. Aircraft generate wake vortices off the tips of their wings. Most of the time, you can not see wake vortices behind an aircraft, but sometimes when an aircraft passes through or near clouds, you can see them. An aircraft flying through the wake vortices of a large aircraft can experience severe turbulence and sometimes upset. This is why aircraft separation is important, and why multiple aircraft lining up to land on a runway do not follow too closely. Because RADS displays the current position of each aircraft AND it's flight path, causes of wake vortex disturbances have been identified and verified using RADS. Show less



Flightscape

• Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

• Senior Software Analyst

  • Oct 2002 - Aug 2007

  At Flightscape, I designed and developed my own scripting language called ADG. It allows aircraft data to be automatically and quickly processed, no matter what airplane or helicopter it is. Automatic Data Generation (ADG) is a library of functions, so it's extendable and has been growing for years as more functionality was needed. C programmers can even write their own plugin functions and call them. Like Unix & Linux, output of one ADG function can be fed into the next function. ADG scripts can be written for ANY aircraft in the world: airplanes, helicopters, drones, UAV, aircraft simulators, and even radar data. Users write their own ADG scripts, using the ADG manual provided. ADG is one of my best contributions to the aviation safety world. Show less



Neptec Design Group

• Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

• Senior Software Developer

  • Jul 2000 - Oct 2002

  At Neptec, I worked on the Canadian Space Vision System (SVS) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). I wrote and integrated the 1553 communications interface (embedded software) between SVS and the Space Shuttle or International Space Station (ISS). SVS calculates the exact position and orientation of the module being attached to the space station using the "Canadarm" robotic arm. During construction of the ISS, real-time telemetry data from SVS was displayed by our software in mission control in Houston. This allowed astronauts and controllers to monitor the docking process in real-time, and make sure everything was aligned properly BEFORE mating the two modules. Cracking a seal on one of the ISS modules would be a VERY expensive mistake, so accurate, reliable, real-time information was essential! The level of documentation, integration testing, and Quality Assurance required by NASA is incredible. We wrote the test procedures, and then performed them each time software was changed. I also worked on the team developing an Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) system which used Neptec's 3D Laser camera to scan and identify objects and accurately determine their position and orientation in 3-dimensional space. Show less