Brian Truong's Page

Name:

Brian

State/Country:

CA

School Name:

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Major:

Aerospace Engineering

Participant Status:

Alumni

ERAU Class Of:

2009

Hobbies:

geocaching, cooking, poker, racquetball, Saints football, book learnin'

About Me:

A recent grad, out to make a name for myself and taking on the world! I've been working at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake (California) for a couple of months now. I'm currently working in the Combat Survivability Branch, which uses computer simulation, data analysis, risk assessment, and engineering know-how to see to it that our fleet aircraft can avoid and withstand whatever the bad guys can throw at us.

My specific project at the moment is learning the Linux operating system so I can run some engagement sims of our planes against foreign SAM threats. Then I'll run a similar set of sims in Windows with a newly developed model in MATLAB/Simulink. I'll finally compare the two models and see which one (if any) will give us more accurate results and predictions.

Outside of work, life's been good these past few months. The town I'm living in (Ridgecrest, CA) isn't very exciting, but like Prescott, it's located within mere hours of other fun destinations. Lots of outdoors activities around here, with a sizable number of geocaches spread throughout the area. Making some good friends amongst the other new hires at the base. Life in the real world can be challenging sometimes, but staying positive and finding humor in all things (two significant items in my skill set) have made it more manageable.

Future Goals:

Can't say for sure how long I'll be at China Lake. The work is extremely interesting, and the people I'm meeting here are great. I just don't know if I want to be in this same geographical location for the rest of my career. Maybe after I gain some experience and clout, a change of station might be in order for me.

Somewhere way down the road, I'd like to be an NTSB aviation accident investigator. I earned an Aviation Safety minor along with my engineering degree at Riddle, and I think that would be a great venue to apply my technical and analytical skills. And my work would (hopefully) help make flying safer. Saving the world, one plane crash at a time.