12.4.23

WSU alumna works to sustain aircraft airworthiness

Three-time Wichita State aerospace engineering graduate, Melinda Laubach-Hock ’02/03/11 understands the nuts and bolts that undergird any successfully sustained career in engineering — or any career, for that matter.

“Applied learning is key to developing real world experience to augment classroom learning and prepare engineering students for employment,” she says. “The applied learning opportunities at WSU are second to none!”

A specialist in solid mechanics, damage tolerance and aircraft structures, as well as research on aging aircraft, Laubach-Hock has worked at WSU’s National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) for more than 21 years, serving as director of aircraft sustainment since June 2020. Because her work focuses on investigating how best to keep older airplanes operating safely and, at the same time, training young engineers and engineering students on aircraft sustainment and program management, she is a huge proponent of Wichita State’s emphasis on applied learning.

“Our students get to work in integrated program teams with seasoned engineers, simulating the post-college world,” she says. “I believe practical experience gives students the opportunity to walk confidently into their first post-graduation engineering job and acclimate quickly. Also, our applied learning students are allowed to move across research areas within NIAR, allowing them to try different engineering disciplines before they graduate, providing them experience to pick the right job just out of college.”

As a Wallace Scholar during her own undergraduate years at Wichita State, she interned for four months with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and worked as a manufacturing/liaison engineer at Cessna. Today, as NIAR’s sustainment director, she oversees a fleet of testing and evaluation programs and R&D projects for military, industry and commercial clients — every one of which offers students prime opportunities for applied learning. Working out of NIAR’s Aircraft Structural Test and Evaluation Center (ASTEC) — the third largest structural test facility in the world – Laubach-Hock is principal investigator for NIAR’s five-year, $100 million contract agreement through the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences to provide Digital Engineering (DE) support to the U.S. Air Force. With the overall goal of sustaining operational readiness, the contract work targets the completion of NIAR’s digital twinning of the F-16 Fighting Falcon and B-1 Lancer aircraft, as well as the B-52 Stratofortress bomber and C-130 Hercules air transport.

Since 2018, Laubach-Hock reports, NIAR has grown its DE program portfolio to include not only legacy USAF aircraft but also U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk and AH-64 Apache airframes, plus ground vehicles and engines. “In 2002, when I started at NIAR, there were about 250 people, total, working there,” she says. “Now, in industry and defense programs, which NIAR is the majority of, there are over 1,800 employees with approximately half in student positions. The most enjoyable thing about work is the diverse group of people I work with — everything from seasoned, professional engineers down to high school students, plus I thoroughly enjoy working with the military.”

A noted fixture on the digital transformation and aircraft sustainment circuit, Laubach-Hock was in Denver last week for the Aircraft Structural Integrity Program (ASIP) convention. A week or two before that she presented to Airlift/Tanker Association members, and within the past month she was also a featured speaker and panelist at the Aircraft Airworthiness & Sustainment (AA&S) conference in San Antonio.

So, what does Laubach-Hock do in her down time? Well, there’s not much of that on this Shocker alumna’s schedule, but she does, she says, “enjoy participating in my four children’s school and extracurricular activities.”