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February 28, 2005 Vol. 76,
no. 7S
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| FLYGIRL:
Once painfully shy, late to ride a bike, and nervous about driving
a car with a stick shift, Cecilia Aragon (M.S.'87 CS) is quite
at home in her custom-built Sabre 320, which climbs at 4,500 feet
per minute and has a roll rate of 420 degrees per second.
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A computer
scientist with a bird's-eye view
Shortly after completing
her master's degree, Cecilia Aragon (M.S. '87 CS) earned her pilot's
license, became an air show pilot, and was a two-time member of the
U.S. Aerobatic Team. Now, she has returned to Berkeley after a 14-year
hiatus from her studies to complete her doctoral degree in computer
science, where her passions for flight and mathematics merge.
"It's so exciting being back in school," she says. "Berkeley is really
at the forefront of this kind of work."
As a computer scientist in the computational sciences division at NASA
Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Aragon's work involves the study
of local wind shear and other airflow hazards in the search for ways
to improve air travel safety. With more than 5,000 accident-free hours
in flight, she may have a more personal investment in keeping
the skies friendly.
"I have these two viewpoints that not many people have, and I want to
use them to make a difference," Aragon says. "People involved in aviation
tend to be very specialized. I've known 20-year veteran aircraft designers
who have never been in the aircraft they were designing for."
Aragon has developed a cockpit display system that displays invisible
air currents to warn pilots of impending disturbances in the air. The
system was incorporated into a high-fidelity rotorcraft simulator and
tested by 16 U.S. Coast Guard and Navy pilots, with dramatic results:
For hazardous landing approaches in highly turbulent conditions, the
hazard indicator reduced the crash rate from 19 percent to 6.3 percent.
Perhaps the most dramatic thing about Aragon, however, is that she used
to be deathly afraid of heights, a fear she aggressively conquered after
a flight in a private plane over the beautiful San Francisco coastline.
("I was in heaven," she recalls.) Now she fearlessly executes air tricks
like multiple snap rolls and tailslides.
"Mastering my fear gave me a feeling of confidence that has carried
over to other parts of my life," Aragon says. "Let's face it. Compared
to pointing the nose of an airplane straight at the ground and flying
vertically down at 200 miles an hour, everything else in life seems
easy."
by Carol Menaker
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